andrewwheeler's Friends
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends View]
Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
[ << Previous 25 ]
| Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 | |
gbhhornswaggler
|
2:51p |
|
|
antickmusings
|
2:51p |
|
|
andrewwheelersf
|
2:51p |
|
|
andrewwheelersf
|
12:47p |
Movie Log: Penelope http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/oFec/~3/342767324/movie-log-penelope.html  Penelope was playing on my flight back from San Francisco last week. I never watch movies on planes -- at least not on those tiny little screens overhead three rows forward -- so I just looked at it now and then, decided it looked interested, and stuck it onto the Netflix queue when I got home. The Wife and I watched it a week ago. It's an attempt at an original fable, and is mostly successful, though it doesn't quite get the level of diction right. It's set in a deliberately confusing setting -- one-half London, one-half vaguely American, and mostly seeming like the early 1960s. Christina Ricci is the titular character, the first girl born in a "blue-blood" family in about a hundred years and thus the recipient of a curse laid upon her great-grandfather by a local witch. The curse is that she looks like a pig -- well, actually, she looks like Christina Ricci with a small, low-key, vaguely un-pretty prosthetic nose. Because of this, her parents (Catherine O'Hara and Richard E. Grant) have kept her confined to the family home since birth. The curse will be lifted when she's married to a "blue-blood" man and thus accepted by her kind, so there's a parade of young men who all dive through a window when they first see Penelope. One of these young men is Edward Humphrey Vanderman III (Simon Woods), who, through a complicated but not interesting series of events, comes to team up with raffish reporter Lemon (Peter Dinklage) to take and publish a picture of Penelope to salvage both of their reputations. They enlist gambling addict and general ne'er-do-well Max (James McAvoy) to charm Penelope and get her picture, but things don't go as planned. Penelope generally meets her suitors via a one-way mirror; she stays in her multi-level Hollywood-villain's-lair bedroom while the young men emote in a very tasteful drawing room until she emerges from behind a bookcase to scare them away. But Max can't get her to come out over the course of several visits. Eventually, Penelope runs away from her gilded cage to see the real world -- Max mentioned the incredibly banal worldly trifecta of a pub, street vendors, and "the park," which Penelope latches on to. She meets the inevitable "free spirit," Annie (played by producer Reese Witherspoon), eventually reveals herself, and becomes a media sensation. There's a wedding at the ending, as all modern fables about women think they must have, and it goes reasonably well -- the message is also exceptionally modern, but it's still a fine message. Penelope generally does pretty well -- it's a C+ / B- movie. Nothing at all is wrong with it, but the "fable" aspect makes chunks of the background unnecessarily hazy, and the dialogue isn't sharp enough to make up for it. (I have a suspicion that this, like many fables, was turned into that form because the writer thought it would be easier than dealing more directly with the real world.) One example of the problems with word choice is that word "blue-blood." It's used exclusively to mean "aristocratic" or "rich" or "upper crust" or "ruling class" or whatever -- it's the one word used, though not explained, to describe Penelope and her class. We're supposed to assume that some kind of aristocracy is meant, but we don't know exactly what kind. A lot of Penelope is like that -- words are used bluntly, because they're good enough. A strong fable is like a poem -- the words have to be exactly right to make it all work. So Penelope is a pleasant movie that's more or less a romantic comedy -- it's funny at times, never overly dramatic, and Max and Penelope do have a connection -- and one which I expect quite a number of young females will like. And if it makes some of them think their own noses are gorgeous by comparison -- and thus stop some pointless cosmetic surgery among some different blue-bloods -- it'll be a good thing |
|
gbhhornswaggler
|
12:47p |
Movie Log: Penelope http://antickmusings.blogspot.com/2008/07/movie-log-penelope.html Penelope was playing on my flight back from San Francisco last week. I never watch movies on planes -- at least not on those tiny little screens overhead three rows forward -- so I just looked at it now and then, decided it looked interested, and stuck it onto the Netflix queue when I got home. The Wife and I watched it a week ago. It's an attempt at an original fable, and is mostly successful, though it doesn't quite get the level of diction right. It's set in a deliberately confusing setting -- one-half London, one-half vaguely American, and mostly seeming like the early 1960s. Christina Ricci is the titular character, the first girl born in a "blue-blood" family in about a hundred years and thus the recipient of a curse laid upon her great-grandfather by a local witch. The curse is that she looks like a pig -- well, actually, she looks like Christina Ricci with a small, low-key, vaguely un-pretty prosthetic nose. Because of this, her parents (Catherine O'Hara and Richard E. Grant) have kept her confined to the family home since birth. The curse will be lifted when she's married to a "blue-blood" man and thus accepted by her kind, so there's a parade of young men who all dive through a window when they first see Penelope. One of these young men is Edward Humphrey Vanderman III (Simon Woods), who, through a complicated but not interesting series of events, comes to team up with raffish reporter Lemon (Peter Dinklage) to take and publish a picture of Penelope to salvage both of their reputations. They enlist gambling addict and general ne'er-do-well Max (James McAvoy) to charm Penelope and get her picture, but things don't go as planned. Penelope generally meets her suitors via a one-way mirror; she stays in her multi-level Hollywood-villain's-lair bedroom while the young men emote in a very tasteful drawing room until she emerges from behind a bookcase to scare them away. But Max can't get her to come out over the course of several visits. Eventually, Penelope runs away from her gilded cage to see the real world -- Max mentioned the incredibly banal worldly trifecta of a pub, street vendors, and "the park," which Penelope latches on to. She meets the inevitable "free spirit," Annie (played by producer Reese Witherspoon), eventually reveals herself, and becomes a media sensation. There's a wedding at the ending, as all modern fables about women think they must have, and it goes reasonably well -- the message is also exceptionally modern, but it's still a fine message. Penelope generally does pretty well -- it's a C+ / B- movie. Nothing at all is wrong with it, but the "fable" aspect makes chunks of the background unnecessarily hazy, and the dialogue isn't sharp enough to make up for it. (I have a suspicion that this, like many fables, was turned into that form because the writer thought it would be easier than dealing more directly with the real world.) One example of the problems with word choice is that word "blue-blood." It's used exclusively to mean "aristocratic" or "rich" or "upper crust" or "ruling class" or whatever -- it's the one word used, though not explained, to describe Penelope and her class. We're supposed to assume that some kind of aristocracy is meant, but we don't know exactly what kind. A lot of Penelope is like that -- words are used bluntly, because they're good enough. A strong fable is like a poem -- the words have to be exactly right to make it all work. So Penelope is a pleasant movie that's more or less a romantic comedy -- it's funny at times, never overly dramatic, and Max and Penelope do have a connection -- and one which I expect quite a number of young females will like. And if it makes some of them think their own noses are gorgeous by comparison -- and thus stop some pointless cosmetic surgery among some different blue-bloods -- it'll be a good thing |
|
antickmusings
|
12:47p |
Movie Log: Penelope http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/oFec/~3/342767324/movie-log-penelope.html Penelope was playing on my flight back from San Francisco last week. I never watch movies on planes -- at least not on those tiny little screens overhead three rows forward -- so I just looked at it now and then, decided it looked interested, and stuck it onto the Netflix queue when I got home. The Wife and I watched it a week ago. It's an attempt at an original fable, and is mostly successful, though it doesn't quite get the level of diction right. It's set in a deliberately confusing setting -- one-half London, one-half vaguely American, and mostly seeming like the early 1960s. Christina Ricci is the titular character, the first girl born in a "blue-blood" family in about a hundred years and thus the recipient of a curse laid upon her great-grandfather by a local witch. The curse is that she looks like a pig -- well, actually, she looks like Christina Ricci with a small, low-key, vaguely un-pretty prosthetic nose. Because of this, her parents (Catherine O'Hara and Richard E. Grant) have kept her confined to the family home since birth. The curse will be lifted when she's married to a "blue-blood" man and thus accepted by her kind, so there's a parade of young men who all dive through a window when they first see Penelope. One of these young men is Edward Humphrey Vanderman III (Simon Woods), who, through a complicated but not interesting series of events, comes to team up with raffish reporter Lemon (Peter Dinklage) to take and publish a picture of Penelope to salvage both of their reputations. They enlist gambling addict and general ne'er-do-well Max (James McAvoy) to charm Penelope and get her picture, but things don't go as planned. Penelope generally meets her suitors via a one-way mirror; she stays in her multi-level Hollywood-villain's-lair bedroom while the young men emote in a very tasteful drawing room until she emerges from behind a bookcase to scare them away. But Max can't get her to come out over the course of several visits. Eventually, Penelope runs away from her gilded cage to see the real world -- Max mentioned the incredibly banal worldly trifecta of a pub, street vendors, and "the park," which Penelope latches on to. She meets the inevitable "free spirit," Annie (played by producer Reese Witherspoon), eventually reveals herself, and becomes a media sensation. There's a wedding at the ending, as all modern fables about women think they must have, and it goes reasonably well -- the message is also exceptionally modern, but it's still a fine message. Penelope generally does pretty well -- it's a C+ / B- movie. Nothing at all is wrong with it, but the "fable" aspect makes chunks of the background unnecessarily hazy, and the dialogue isn't sharp enough to make up for it. (I have a suspicion that this, like many fables, was turned into that form because the writer thought it would be easier than dealing more directly with the real world.) One example of the problems with word choice is that word "blue-blood." It's used exclusively to mean "aristocratic" or "rich" or "upper crust" or "ruling class" or whatever -- it's the one word used, though not explained, to describe Penelope and her class. We're supposed to assume that some kind of aristocracy is meant, but we don't know exactly what kind. A lot of Penelope is like that -- words are used bluntly, because they're good enough. A strong fable is like a poem -- the words have to be exactly right to make it all work. So Penelope is a pleasant movie that's more or less a romantic comedy -- it's funny at times, never overly dramatic, and Max and Penelope do have a connection -- and one which I expect quite a number of young females will like. And if it makes some of them think their own noses are gorgeous by comparison -- and thus stop some pointless cosmetic surgery among some different blue-bloods -- it'll be a good thing |
|
andrewwheelersf
|
8:14a |
Being Concerned About Things that Have Already Happened http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/oFec/~3/342536667/being-concerned-about-things-that-have.html Dave Kellett, the cartoonist who does the webcomic Sheldon, apparently has never heard of the jukebox musical, since his first two strips this week express surprise and amazement at Mamma Mia!I find his "what if this goes on!" take amusing, especially since there have been piles of them coming and going on Broadway for the past decade -- it looks like Jersey Boys is the only other one currently running , but there have been musicals with songs by Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, Billy Joel, Elvis, Johnny Cash, and even Kurt Weil. It's a bit late to even consider closing that particular barn door... |
|
gbhhornswaggler
|
8:14a |
Being Concerned About Things that Have Already Happened http://antickmusings.blogspot.com/2008/07/being-concerned-about-things-that-have.html Dave Kellett, the cartoonist who does the webcomic Sheldon, apparently has never heard of the jukebox musical, since his first two strips this week express surprise and amazement at Mamma Mia!I find his "what if this goes on!" take amusing, especially since there have been piles of them coming and going on Broadway for the past decade -- it looks like Jersey Boys is the only other one currently running , but there have been musicals with songs by Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, Billy Joel, Elvis, Johnny Cash, and even Kurt Weil. It's a bit late to even consider closing that particular barn door... |
|
antickmusings
|
8:14a |
Being Concerned About Things that Have Already Happened http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/oFec/~3/342536667/being-concerned-about-things-that-have.html Dave Kellett, the cartoonist who does the webcomic Sheldon, apparently has never heard of the jukebox musical, since his first two strips this week express surprise and amazement at Mamma Mia!I find his "what if this goes on!" take amusing, especially since there have been piles of them coming and going on Broadway for the past decade -- it looks like Jersey Boys is the only other one currently running , but there have been musicals with songs by Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, Billy Joel, Elvis, Johnny Cash, and even Kurt Weil. It's a bit late to even consider closing that particular barn door... |
| Monday, July 21st, 2008 | |
antickmusings
|
5:55p |
Last Week at ComicMix http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/oFec/~3/341975018/last-week-at-comicmix.html I've been busy! BUSY! lately, and so have gotten behind on linking to my ComicMix reviews. Before I dive into a new week of them -- I have one I should be writing tonight -- here's what I accomplished last week: That's nine books reviewed in one week, which is really too many for my poor typing fingers. This week, if things work out, is Blues and Jazz week, with probably just three books. Don't expect themes all the time, but I'll take 'em when they fall into my lap. |
|
andrewwheelersf
|
5:55p |
Last Week at ComicMix http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/oFec/~3/341975018/last-week-at-comicmix.html I've been busy! BUSY! lately, and so have gotten behind on linking to my ComicMix reviews. Before I dive into a new week of them -- I have one I should be writing tonight -- here's what I accomplished last week: That's nine books reviewed in one week, which is really too many for my poor typing fingers. This week, if things work out, is Blues and Jazz week, with probably just three books. Don't expect themes all the time, but I'll take 'em when they fall into my lap. |
|
gbhhornswaggler
|
5:55p |
Last Week at ComicMix http://antickmusings.blogspot.com/2008/07/last-week-at-comicmix.html I've been busy! BUSY! lately, and so have gotten behind on linking to my ComicMix reviews. Before I dive into a new week of them -- I have one I should be writing tonight -- here's what I accomplished last week: That's nine books reviewed in one week, which is really too many for my poor typing fingers. This week, if things work out, is Blues and Jazz week, with probably just three books. Don't expect themes all the time, but I'll take 'em when they fall into my lap. |
|
antickmusings
|
11:30a |
Reviewing the Mail: Week of 7/19 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/oFec/~3/341683779/reviewing-mail-week-of-719.html  It's mostly Roc and DAW this week, but let me get right to it: Gale Force by Rachel Caine is first; it's the seventh "Weather Warden" novel, about a gal who controls the weather and her Djinni boyfriend. (I've only read a bit of one of the books, so I don't know the series at all.) It's coming from Roc in August.  Enchantment Place is this month's entry from the Marty Greenberg anthology factory, with Denise Little in the driver's seat this time. It collects seventeen original -- and rather short, as you've probably guess from the fact that there are seventeen of them in one mass-market paperback -- stories about supernatural creatures at the mall from such names as Mary Jo Putney, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Sarah A. Hoyt, Jody Lynn Nye, Laura Resnick, and Diane Duane. DAW is publishing this any minute now.  S.L. Viehl's " Stardoc" series, which is about, yes, a science fictional doctor, hits its eighth volume with Omega Games . Roc publishes this one, in the ever-popular mass-market format. I haven't read any of them, so I can't say much more than that. I did always like James White's "Sector General" books, which were also about space doctors -- though I have no idea if Viehl's stories are anything like White's.  John Joseph Adams slipped me a copy of his upcoming anthology Seeds of Change , which gathers nine original stories about major changes to the world. It has stories by Tobias S. Buckell, Ted Kosmatka, Jay Lake, Ken MacLeod, and other impressive names, and Prime will publish it in August. This could be one of the major anthologies of the year, if the stories have the punch they could; I look forward to reading it. Elizabeth Bear's Hell and Earth is the second half of the novel "The Stratford Man;" the first half was published last month as Ink and Steel . Many publishers would balk at publishing two fat trade paperbacks in back-to-back months; I'm glad to see Roc has stepped up to the challenge. This is part of her larger "Promethean Cycle," but I've been assured that all of the pieces stand completely separately. (And now there are even more Elizabeth Bear books I haven't read.)  Underground is the third novel in Kat Richardson's " Greywalker" series, and the first to be published in hardcover -- that's traditionally a good sign for a series, so congratulations to Kat (who has been know to hang out on one of my favorite Internet haunts, rec.arts.sf.written). Roc is doing this one in August. And last this week is C.F. Bentley's Harmony , a science fiction novel from a new name in the field. (Though the copyright page credits one Phyllis Irene Radford, a writer with some expertise and knowledge under her belt.) It sounds like an old-fashioned space opera, with human and alien empires battling over a smaller space polity, one ruled by a High Priestess at the top of a Byzantine caste system and just about due to be thrown into upheaval by a plucky and preternaturally gifted young heroine. It's from DAW in hardcover, and will be in stores within a couple of weeks.  |
|
andrewwheelersf
|
11:30a |
Reviewing the Mail: Week of 7/19 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/oFec/~3/341683779/reviewing-mail-week-of-719.html It's mostly Roc and DAW this week, but let me get right to it: Gale Force by Rachel Caine is first; it's the seventh "Weather Warden" novel, about a gal who controls the weather and her Djinni boyfriend. (I've only read a bit of one of the books, so I don't know the series at all.) It's coming from Roc in August. Enchantment Place is this month's entry from the Marty Greenberg anthology factory, with Denise Little in the driver's seat this time. It collects seventeen original -- and rather short, as you've probably guess from the fact that there are seventeen of them in one mass-market paperback -- stories about supernatural creatures at the mall from such names as Mary Jo Putney, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Sarah A. Hoyt, Jody Lynn Nye, Laura Resnick, and Diane Duane. DAW is publishing this any minute now. S.L. Viehl's " Stardoc" series, which is about, yes, a science fictional doctor, hits its eighth volume with Omega Games. Roc publishes this one, in the ever-popular mass-market format. I haven't read any of them, so I can't say much more than that. I did always like James White's "Sector General" books, which were also about space doctors -- though I have no idea if Viehl's stories are anything like White's. John Joseph Adams slipped me a copy of his upcoming anthology Seeds of Change, which gathers nine original stories about major changes to the world. It has stories by Tobias S. Buckell, Ted Kosmatka, Jay Lake, Ken MacLeod, and other impressive names, and Prime will publish it in August. This could be one of the major anthologies of the year, if the stories have the punch they could; I look forward to reading it. Elizabeth Bear's Hell and Earth is the second half of the novel "The Stratford Man;" the first half was published last month as Ink and Steel. Many publishers would balk at publishing two fat trade paperbacks in back-to-back months; I'm glad to see Roc has stepped up to the challenge. This is part of her larger "Promethean Cycle," but I've been assured that all of the pieces stand completely separately. (And now there are even more Elizabeth Bear books I haven't read.) Underground is the third novel in Kat Richardson's " Greywalker" series, and the first to be published in hardcover -- that's traditionally a good sign for a series, so congratulations to Kat (who has been know to hang out on one of my favorite Internet haunts, rec.arts.sf.written). Roc is doing this one in August. And last this week is C.F. Bentley's Harmony, a science fiction novel from a new name in the field. (Though the copyright page credits one Phyllis Irene Radford, a writer with some expertise and knowledge under her belt.) It sounds like an old-fashioned space opera, with human and alien empires battling over a smaller space polity, one ruled by a High Priestess at the top of a Byzantine caste system and just about due to be thrown into upheaval by a plucky and preternaturally gifted young heroine. It's from DAW in hardcover, and will be in stores within a couple of weeks. |
|
gbhhornswaggler
|
11:30a |
Reviewing the Mail: Week of 7/19 http://antickmusings.blogspot.com/2008/07/reviewing-mail-week-of-719.html It's mostly Roc and DAW this week, but let me get right to it: Gale Force by Rachel Caine is first; it's the seventh "Weather Warden" novel, about a gal who controls the weather and her Djinni boyfriend. (I've only read a bit of one of the books, so I don't know the series at all.) It's coming from Roc in August. Enchantment Place is this month's entry from the Marty Greenberg anthology factory, with Denise Little in the driver's seat this time. It collects seventeen original -- and rather short, as you've probably guess from the fact that there are seventeen of them in one mass-market paperback -- stories about supernatural creatures at the mall from such names as Mary Jo Putney, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Sarah A. Hoyt, Jody Lynn Nye, Laura Resnick, and Diane Duane. DAW is publishing this any minute now. S.L. Viehl's " Stardoc" series, which is about, yes, a science fictional doctor, hits its eighth volume with Omega Games. Roc publishes this one, in the ever-popular mass-market format. I haven't read any of them, so I can't say much more than that. I did always like James White's "Sector General" books, which were also about space doctors -- though I have no idea if Viehl's stories are anything like White's. John Joseph Adams slipped me a copy of his upcoming anthology Seeds of Change, which gathers nine original stories about major changes to the world. It has stories by Tobias S. Buckell, Ted Kosmatka, Jay Lake, Ken MacLeod, and other impressive names, and Prime will publish it in August. This could be one of the major anthologies of the year, if the stories have the punch they could; I look forward to reading it. Elizabeth Bear's Hell and Earth is the second half of the novel "The Stratford Man;" the first half was published last month as Ink and Steel. Many publishers would balk at publishing two fat trade paperbacks in back-to-back months; I'm glad to see Roc has stepped up to the challenge. This is part of her larger "Promethean Cycle," but I've been assured that all of the pieces stand completely separately. (And now there are even more Elizabeth Bear books I haven't read.) Underground is the third novel in Kat Richardson's " Greywalker" series, and the first to be published in hardcover -- that's traditionally a good sign for a series, so congratulations to Kat (who has been know to hang out on one of my favorite Internet haunts, rec.arts.sf.written). Roc is doing this one in August. And last this week is C.F. Bentley's Harmony, a science fiction novel from a new name in the field. (Though the copyright page credits one Phyllis Irene Radford, a writer with some expertise and knowledge under her belt.) It sounds like an old-fashioned space opera, with human and alien empires battling over a smaller space polity, one ruled by a High Priestess at the top of a Byzantine caste system and just about due to be thrown into upheaval by a plucky and preternaturally gifted young heroine. It's from DAW in hardcover, and will be in stores within a couple of weeks. |
| Sunday, July 20th, 2008 | |
antickmusings
|
10:04p |
A Minor Amusement http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/oFec/~3/341151311/minor-amusement.html This evening I've been trying to run through as many of my accumulated Bloglines posts as possible -- since I had no Internet access at Readercon, I had three days piled up, and that gets pretty big. I just cleared out one folder, and was thinking about diving into another -- but it's late, and I'm tired. And then I noticed that I have exactly 1337 unread posts. How could I not leave it at that level for the night? |
|
gbhhornswaggler
|
10:04p |
A Minor Amusement http://antickmusings.blogspot.com/2008/07/minor-amusement.html This evening I've been trying to run through as many of my accumulated Bloglines posts as possible -- since I had no Internet access at Readercon, I had three days piled up, and that gets pretty big. I just cleared out one folder, and was thinking about diving into another -- but it's late, and I'm tired. And then I noticed that I have exactly 1337 unread posts. How could I not leave it at that level for the night? |
|
andrewwheelersf
|
10:04p |
A Minor Amusement http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/oFec/~3/341151311/minor-amusement.html This evening I've been trying to run through as many of my accumulated Bloglines posts as possible -- since I had no Internet access at Readercon, I had three days piled up, and that gets pretty big. I just cleared out one folder, and was thinking about diving into another -- but it's late, and I'm tired. And then I noticed that I have exactly 1337 unread posts. How could I not leave it at that level for the night? |
|
antickmusings
|
7:46p |
Itzkoff and the Albino http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/oFec/~3/341064706/itzkoff-and-albino.html I'm indebted to John Joseph Adams for first pointing out to me that Our Man Itzkoff was back in The New York Times Book Review -- I was at Readercon over the weekend, while both my Times and my Internet access were back here in New Jersey. So I spent a day and a half in anticipation of the pearls of wisdom and jewels of prose that Itzkoff would bestow on us this time. As has become his routine, this time Itzkoff takes about twelve hundred words -- one whole page in the NYTBR -- to review a single book. As is also usual, he reviews a reprint of old material that he's already hugely fond of. One might begin to wonder if he's the world's first major book reviewer to hit on a way to practice his craft without actually having to read any books...but that would be unkind, wouldn't it? The book he's reviewing is The Stealer of Souls , the first of Del Rey's new four-volume reprinting of Michael Moorcock's Elric stories. It's a nice-looking book -- illustrated by John Picacio -- and places the stories in the order Moorcock originally wrote them, which makes as much sense as any other order at this point. ( Moorcock went to the ending almost immediately, and then spent nearly forty years interpolating material into different parts of the middle, and his style and concerns changed several times over that period.) The Stealer of Souls was published in February, which makes this review quite late, but I imagine Itzkoff has been busy dealing with Axl Rose's memoir -- and, besides, the NYTBR has been notably late at covering many, many books this year, so it's probably not even Itzy's fault. (Not noting that the second volume in the series, To Rescue Tanelorn , will be published in nine days is, though, a sloppiness that can only be attributed to Itzkoff.) By the way, am I the only one to note that "Across the Universe" is now appearing only bi-yearly? The last installment -- which I discussed in this space at the time -- was published in February of this year, covering three YA novels, and the one before that, on Philip K. Dick, was more than a year ago. I will also note without comment that two out of his last three columns are on books he read and loved as a child; Itzkoff appears to be doing very little original reading for this gig. And so on to the actual review: there's a hideous illustration that manages to give Elric a normal Caucasian skin tone, though I can't fault Itzkoff for that. Itzkoff does realize, about halfway through the review -- but before actually mentioning anything that specifically appears in this volume, in the best Itzkoff fashion -- that he's taking up a whole page to badly review a fantasy book for what is ostensibly a science fiction column, and so he contorts himself to describe one of Moorcock's polemical essays, this one against just about every other SF and fantasy writer at the time. (I suspect this essay, " Starship Stormtroopers," is caught up somehow with the New Wave, but Itzkoff is innocent of all movements and so can't tell us.) Other things Itzkoff doesn't do: - mention the illustrations
- point out that this Stealer of Souls is a very different book from the old, slimmer Elric collection of the same name
- talk about any of the new material or the edits to old stories
- list the titles of any of the stories included here
In fact, he never actually mentions that this is a collection of short stories at all -- he does blather about Elric's "adventures," his "quests," and his "tales," but fails to come right out and say what The Stealer of Souls actually is. If I were a cynical, obnoxious bastard -- and don't look at me like that -- I'd say that it's hard to find any evidence from this review that Itzkoff even cracked the covers of this edition of Stealer of Souls, or possibly even saw it. (It may be personal arrogance, but I think I did a better job of mentioning the important points of Stealer of Souls without reading it at the end of this "Reviewing the Mail" post from February.) So this is another typical Itzkoff performance of a SF review: well-meaning and enthusiastic, but galumphing off in three wrong directions at once. Itzkoff is the book-review equivalent of Beethoven the dog -- though, sadly, he doesn't have a Hollywood plot to redeem him in the third act. New York Times Book Review, it's time to stop pretending he can review SF. Either give the job to someone else -- anyone else -- or just go back to ignoring us like you ignore romances. |
|
gbhhornswaggler
|
7:46p |
Itzkoff and the Albino http://antickmusings.blogspot.com/2008/07/itzkoff-and-albino.html I'm indebted to John Joseph Adams for first pointing out to me that Our Man Itzkoff was back in The New York Times Book Review -- I was at Readercon over the weekend, while both my Times and my Internet access were back here in New Jersey. So I spent a day and a half in anticipation of the pearls of wisdom and jewels of prose that Itzkoff would bestow on us this time. As has become his routine, this time Itzkoff takes about twelve hundred words -- one whole page in the NYTBR -- to review a single book. As is also usual, he reviews a reprint of old material that he's already hugely fond of. One might begin to wonder if he's the world's first major book reviewer to hit on a way to practice his craft without actually having to read any books...but that would be unkind, wouldn't it? The book he's reviewing is The Stealer of Souls, the first of Del Rey's new four-volume reprinting of Michael Moorcock's Elric stories. It's a nice-looking book -- illustrated by John Picacio -- and places the stories in the order Moorcock originally wrote them, which makes as much sense as any other order at this point. ( Moorcock went to the ending almost immediately, and then spent nearly forty years interpolating material into different parts of the middle, and his style and concerns changed several times over that period.) The Stealer of Souls was published in February, which makes this review quite late, but I imagine Itzkoff has been busy dealing with Axl Rose's memoir -- and, besides, the NYTBR has been notably late at covering many, many books this year, so it's probably not even Itzy's fault. (Not noting that the second volume in the series, To Rescue Tanelorn, will be published in nine days is, though, a sloppiness that can only be attributed to Itzkoff.) By the way, am I the only one to note that "Across the Universe" is now appearing only bi-yearly? The last installment -- which I discussed in this space at the time -- was published in February of this year, covering three YA novels, and the one before that, on Philip K. Dick, was more than a year ago. I will also note without comment that two out of his last three columns are on books he read and loved as a child; Itzkoff appears to be doing very little original reading for this gig. And so on to the actual review: there's a hideous illustration that manages to give Elric a normal Caucasian skin tone, though I can't fault Itzkoff for that. Itzkoff does realize, about halfway through the review -- but before actually mentioning anything that specifically appears in this volume, in the best Itzkoff fashion -- that he's taking up a whole page to badly review a fantasy book for what is ostensibly a science fiction column, and so he contorts himself to describe one of Moorcock's polemical essays, this one against just about every other SF and fantasy writer at the time. (I suspect this essay, " Starship Stormtroopers," is caught up somehow with the New Wave, but Itzkoff is innocent of all movements and so can't tell us.) Other things Itzkoff doesn't do: - mention the illustrations
- point out that this Stealer of Souls is a very different book from the old, slimmer Elric collection of the same name
- talk about any of the new material or the edits to old stories
- list the titles of any of the stories included here
In fact, he never actually mentions that this is a collection of short stories at all -- he does blather about Elric's "adventures," his "quests," and his "tales," but fails to come right out and say what The Stealer of Souls actually is. If I were a cynical, obnoxious bastard -- and don't look at me like that -- I'd say that it's hard to find any evidence from this review that Itzkoff even cracked the covers of this edition of Stealer of Souls, or possibly even saw it. (It may be personal arrogance, but I think I did a better job of mentioning the important points of Stealer of Souls without reading it at the end of this "Reviewing the Mail" post from February.) So this is another typical Itzkoff performance of a SF review: well-meaning and enthusiastic, but galumphing off in three wrong directions at once. Itzkoff is the book-review equivalent of Beethoven the dog -- though, sadly, he doesn't have a Hollywood plot to redeem him in the third act. New York Times Book Review, it's time to stop pretending he can review SF. Either give the job to someone else -- anyone else -- or just go back to ignoring us like you ignore romances. |
|
andrewwheelersf
|
7:46p |
Itzkoff and the Albino http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/oFec/~3/341064706/itzkoff-and-albino.html I'm indebted to John Joseph Adams for first pointing out to me that Our Man Itzkoff was back in The New York Times Book Review -- I was at Readercon over the weekend, while both my Times and my Internet access were back here in New Jersey. So I spent a day and a half in anticipation of the pearls of wisdom and jewels of prose that Itzkoff would bestow on us this time. As has become his routine, this time Itzkoff takes about twelve hundred words -- one whole page in the NYTBR -- to review a single book. As is also usual, he reviews a reprint of old material that he's already hugely fond of. One might begin to wonder if he's the world's first major book reviewer to hit on a way to practice his craft without actually having to read any books...but that would be unkind, wouldn't it? The book he's reviewing is The Stealer of Souls, the first of Del Rey's new four-volume reprinting of Michael Moorcock's Elric stories. It's a nice-looking book -- illustrated by John Picacio -- and places the stories in the order Moorcock originally wrote them, which makes as much sense as any other order at this point. ( Moorcock went to the ending almost immediately, and then spent nearly forty years interpolating material into different parts of the middle, and his style and concerns changed several times over that period.) The Stealer of Souls was published in February, which makes this review quite late, but I imagine Itzkoff has been busy dealing with Axl Rose's memoir -- and, besides, the NYTBR has been notably late at covering many, many books this year, so it's probably not even Itzy's fault. (Not noting that the second volume in the series, To Rescue Tanelorn, will be published in nine days is, though, a sloppiness that can only be attributed to Itzkoff.) By the way, am I the only one to note that "Across the Universe" is now appearing only bi-yearly? The last installment -- which I discussed in this space at the time -- was published in February of this year, covering three YA novels, and the one before that, on Philip K. Dick, was more than a year ago. I will also note without comment that two out of his last three columns are on books he read and loved as a child; Itzkoff appears to be doing very little original reading for this gig. And so on to the actual review: there's a hideous illustration that manages to give Elric a normal Caucasian skin tone, though I can't fault Itzkoff for that. Itzkoff does realize, about halfway through the review -- but before actually mentioning anything that specifically appears in this volume, in the best Itzkoff fashion -- that he's taking up a whole page to badly review a fantasy book for what is ostensibly a science fiction column, and so he contorts himself to describe one of Moorcock's polemical essays, this one against just about every other SF and fantasy writer at the time. (I suspect this essay, " Starship Stormtroopers," is caught up somehow with the New Wave, but Itzkoff is innocent of all movements and so can't tell us.) Other things Itzkoff doesn't do: - mention the illustrations
- point out that this Stealer of Souls is a very different book from the old, slimmer Elric collection of the same name
- talk about any of the new material or the edits to old stories
- list the titles of any of the stories included here
In fact, he never actually mentions that this is a collection of short stories at all -- he does blather about Elric's "adventures," his "quests," and his "tales," but fails to come right out and say what The Stealer of Souls actually is. If I were a cynical, obnoxious bastard -- and don't look at me like that -- I'd say that it's hard to find any evidence from this review that Itzkoff even cracked the covers of this edition of Stealer of Souls, or possibly even saw it. (It may be personal arrogance, but I think I did a better job of mentioning the important points of Stealer of Souls without reading it at the end of this "Reviewing the Mail" post from February.) So this is another typical Itzkoff performance of a SF review: well-meaning and enthusiastic, but galumphing off in three wrong directions at once. Itzkoff is the book-review equivalent of Beethoven the dog -- though, sadly, he doesn't have a Hollywood plot to redeem him in the third act. New York Times Book Review, it's time to stop pretending he can review SF. Either give the job to someone else -- anyone else -- or just go back to ignoring us like you ignore romances. |
| Friday, July 18th, 2008 | |
gbhhornswaggler
|
7:53a |
SFWA's New Grand Master http://antickmusings.blogspot.com/2008/07/sfwas-new-grand-master.html SFWA has announced that the "Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master" for next year will be Harry Harrison, getting a jump on the April event and continuing the new regime's apparent policy of clearing their desks of all work as quickly as humanly possible. This is a really, really early announcement, isn't it? I thought typically this news came out early in the year, two or three months before the Nebula Awards Weekend. I hope that doesn't mean that Harrison is very ill, but that's what came to mind first. SFWA is digging deep into the apple barrel for Grand Masters at this point, choosing prolific and long-lived writers who each wrote a few seminal works but aren't the overarching giants of the field. (On the other hand, that description also fits just as well some of the very earliest Grand Masters, like Simak and Williamson. Grand Masters have only rarely been as "Grand" as they might possibly be.) Personally, I read a lot of Harrison in my formative years, and enjoyed his books, particularly the "Stainless Steel Rat" novels. Most of those books, though, don't really hold up now. I suspect he's really getting the Grand Master-ship because he survived so long and because of Make Room! Make Room! (I also read a lot of Ron Goulart in those days, and I don't seriously expect to see him made a Grand Master any time soon; I'm not claiming I had wonderful taste at the age of twelve.) I'm not complaining, exactly -- this is SFWA's award, for people who SFWA really likes, and it has never been explicitly for "great writers" -- just noting that I would put Harrison on a lower level than such recent winners as Le Guin, Silverberg, and Ellison. And SFWA has now given a Grand Mastership every year since 2003 -- seven in a row. They also gave out GMs for seven years straight from 1994 to 2000, after a much more leisurely pattern in the award's first twenty years. It's hard to avoid thinking that SFWA is trying to hand these out to as many of their older friends and colleagues as they can, as quickly as they can, before those older writers die. Again, it's their award, so they can do what they want with it. But if they want to use the Nebulas to increase their prominence and influence -- as has been repeatedly suggested -- then loading up with a bunch of GMs might not be the optimum strategy. |
|
antickmusings
|
7:53a |
SFWA's New Grand Master http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/oFec/~3/338990696/sfwas-new-grand-master.html SFWA has announced that the "Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master" for next year will be Harry Harrison, getting a jump on the April event and continuing the new regime's apparent policy of clearing their desks of all work as quickly as humanly possible. This is a really, really early announcement, isn't it? I thought typically this news came out early in the year, two or three months before the Nebula Awards Weekend. I hope that doesn't mean that Harrison is very ill, but that's what came to mind first. SFWA is digging deep into the apple barrel for Grand Masters at this point, choosing prolific and long-lived writers who each wrote a few seminal works but aren't the overarching giants of the field. (On the other hand, that description also fits just as well some of the very earliest Grand Masters, like Simak and Williamson. Grand Masters have only rarely been as "Grand" as they might possibly be.) Personally, I read a lot of Harrison in my formative years, and enjoyed his books, particularly the "Stainless Steel Rat" novels. Most of those books, though, don't really hold up now. I suspect he's really getting the Grand Master-ship because he survived so long and because of Make Room! Make Room! (I also read a lot of Ron Goulart in those days, and I don't seriously expect to see him made a Grand Master any time soon; I'm not claiming I had wonderful taste at the age of twelve.) I'm not complaining, exactly -- this is SFWA's award, for people who SFWA really likes, and it has never been explicitly for "great writers" -- just noting that I would put Harrison on a lower level than such recent winners as Le Guin, Silverberg, and Ellison. And SFWA has now given a Grand Mastership every year since 2003 -- seven in a row. They also gave out GMs for seven years straight from 1994 to 2000, after a much more leisurely pattern in the award's first twenty years. It's hard to avoid thinking that SFWA is trying to hand these out to as many of their older friends and colleagues as they can, as quickly as they can, before those older writers die. Again, it's their award, so they can do what they want with it. But if they want to use the Nebulas to increase their prominence and influence -- as has been repeatedly suggested -- then loading up with a bunch of GMs might not be the optimum strategy. |
|
andrewwheelersf
|
7:53a |
SFWA's New Grand Master http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/oFec/~3/338990696/sfwas-new-grand-master.html SFWA has announced that the "Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master" for next year will be Harry Harrison, getting a jump on the April event and continuing the new regime's apparent policy of clearing their desks of all work as quickly as humanly possible. This is a really, really early announcement, isn't it? I thought typically this news came out early in the year, two or three months before the Nebula Awards Weekend. I hope that doesn't mean that Harrison is very ill, but that's what came to mind first. SFWA is digging deep into the apple barrel for Grand Masters at this point, choosing prolific and long-lived writers who each wrote a few seminal works but aren't the overarching giants of the field. (On the other hand, that description also fits just as well some of the very earliest Grand Masters, like Simak and Williamson. Grand Masters have only rarely been as "Grand" as they might possibly be.) Personally, I read a lot of Harrison in my formative years, and enjoyed his books, particularly the "Stainless Steel Rat" novels. Most of those books, though, don't really hold up now. I suspect he's really getting the Grand Master-ship because he survived so long and because of Make Room! Make Room! (I also read a lot of Ron Goulart in those days, and I don't seriously expect to see him made a Grand Master any time soon; I'm not claiming I had wonderful taste at the age of twelve.) I'm not complaining, exactly -- this is SFWA's award, for people who SFWA really likes, and it has never been explicitly for "great writers" -- just noting that I would put Harrison on a lower level than such recent winners as Le Guin, Silverberg, and Ellison. And SFWA has now given a Grand Mastership every year since 2003 -- seven in a row. They also gave out GMs for seven years straight from 1994 to 2000, after a much more leisurely pattern in the award's first twenty years. It's hard to avoid thinking that SFWA is trying to hand these out to as many of their older friends and colleagues as they can, as quickly as they can, before those older writers die. Again, it's their award, so they can do what they want with it. But if they want to use the Nebulas to increase their prominence and influence -- as has been repeatedly suggested -- then loading up with a bunch of GMs might not be the optimum strategy. |
| Thursday, July 17th, 2008 | |
gbhhornswaggler
|
6:12p |
A Biased Quiz http://antickmusings.blogspot.com/2008/07/biased-quiz.html It was about time for another quiz designed by and for needy twenty-something single girls, so I picked this one, since Diana Pharaoh Francis was doing it. I don't agree at all with its characterization of me, since I believe its premises are skewed; what it sees as distance and detachment, I would call "being married for fifteen years." Really, kids, the drama level goes way down later in your lives. At least, it's supposed to. Your result for The Attachment Style Test... The Player
You are most comfortable without close emotional relationships. It is very important to you to feel independent and self-sufficient, and you hate the idea of having to depend on others or having others depend on you. The very few times you have fallen in love, it was probably with someone unattainable and disinterested. You know how to have a good time with your friends, but when it comes time to bare your deeper feelings, you tend to laugh nervously and change the subject. Fictional character with whom you might identify: Captain Jack Harkness (Doctor Who/Torchwood), Holly Golightly (Breakfast at Tiffany's) Take The Attachment Style Test at HelloQuizzy |
[ << Previous 25 ]
|
|
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
andrewwheeler's Friends Page
, 
