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Forrest J Ackerman dead at 92. The ultimate fan is gone.

I have one lasting memory of Forry. I happened to have the Hotel room next to him at a con and we kept bumping into each other in the corridor and the lift. He greeted me, essentially a complete stranger, every time like a dear friend and we talked about the con and other stuff. He had met so many people over the years that he assumed that everybody was his friend. Not a bad way to approach fandom.

A few posts back I was musing on the notion that originality is overrated. It was really about the fact that the mundane skill of competence isn't really regarded as highly as it should be by comparison. If a book has little that is original but it is extremely well executed, then it is still an object of some worth. Trying to write this bit about The Painted Man by Peter V Brett illustrates why the situation is going to remain tilted in the direction of originality. I mean, what the heck do you say about a book that is the first in a big fat fantasy series about people finding their power in the face of dread magics. Sure it is well executed and an entertainingly page turning read, but what else? I got nothing.

That is all.

Some words you just don't expect to (over)hear in a conversation these days - "what is an iPhone?"

As I have mentioned a few times recently, I'm a bit of a sucker for pop culture references. The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman has a bunch of them. Well, I think so. I recognise a few of them anyway - a time machine bigger on the inside than the out anybody? And I can see where the text is set up for others - I just don't recognise them. Time travel, particularly in ever increasing jumps forward, was a staple of science fiction in its earliest days and has never really left the genre. There are a lot of references for Joe to call upon and I just don't get them all which is a pity really because it rather seems to be the point of the book. Of course, it is not without its other charms because he really is a good wordsmith and can always spin a good yarn. However there are two sorts of Joe Haldeman stories. There are the all too rare epic tales with war themes that are in the top of the field. Then there are the entertaining but slight stories that always seem to have some sort of non-divine god figure in them. This book is certainly in the latter class.

Writers get attached to their characters. Its almost a given - especially when the characters are part of an ongoing series. You find recurring characters in series in most genres, but never more so than in the detective crime novel. From Poirot to Stephanie Plum, these characters can go on forever. Which brings me to the latest PD James novel The Private Patient featuring, of course, the character of Adam Dalgliesh and his little team.

I have always liked James' work for its grimness. The characters are not happy - they are ordinary people living lives of quiet desperation. Even the superman Dalgleish is deeply troubled. Somehow it add a depth and texture to otherwise fairly standard format murder mystery stories. But things are a bit different in The Private Patient.

( A little spoilerish - consider yourself warned )

I'm sure there are at least a couple of you who read this blog regularly. Therefore somebody may have noticed that I haven't been writing about books in the last couple of weeks. That is pretty bad for somebody who charts their way through life by the use of books. Yes, it has been one of my periodic reading slumps.

The think is, I never stop completely. For example I tend to read more short stories. Also, in the past, I have picked a low impact book. Something that won't be too hard on the brain cells. This time I picked another of Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden stories. It was Dead Beat – a title from later in the series than Summer Knight which I'd read a little while back. I was curious to see how the series was progressing without the tedium of reading all the ones in between.

There was quite a contrast. Both books were based on the same basic model of Chandleresque hard boiled with added magic, the first book I'd read had been quite a pure rendition of that. The later book is bloated with extra complication, added violent bits and a plot that just kept on expanding. Not exactly a mess, but not clean either. While still perfectly readable, the later book didn't grab the attention as well – it was much easier to put down. There are several possible explanations for Butcher going "off mission" like this and I don't know which ones apply – I don't really care, I just see that it isn't as good.

One thing that is consistent is that Harry Dresden, the character, is just as annoying as he ever was. He may have grown and changed but I still want to give him a good slapping.

I wonder if this change in the books would have been as noticeable if I hadn't jumped forward a bunch of episodes. Heck, it may not even have been a problem if I had tracked through one story at a time.

Please let this be real. The first direct visual evidence of planets outside our own solar system. Inference is all very well, but this is the real thing.

ETA: But wait, there's more. This indicates that HR8799 may have *two* visible planets. Although in this case there isn't any time comparison to indicate orbital movement.

I was walking past The Beehive last night at 9-ish. Normally even at that hour mid-week, most of the lights are on, but last night understandably perhaps it was quite dark. Except that is for the 9th floor - all the lights were on. It made me wonder what might be happening up there in this transitional week.

John Key rolling around on the carpet giggling maniacally
JK & Bronagh "christening" the place (can you imaging HC & PD doing that? I can't and don't want to)
Helen Clark sitting at her desk, her fingers gripping the desk so hard that she leaves fingerprint impressions
HC working as normal up to the last minute
Phil Goff enjoying the moment and wondering what might have been - he may never officially have the job, but just for a week, it sort of notionally is his.
Heather Simpson stuffing vast volumes through an industrial strength paper shredder.

What do you think is going on?

If you foreign types need context, feel free to ask in the comments...

It seems I'm getting older. Therefore it appears there is the business of my impending birthday to deal with.

Luckily for me

lauriefleming has been aging in lockstep with me over the years so we can halve the pain and double the celebration. This year we collectively chalk up 100 years which is more than a little disconcerting.

In order to get around the shock of 3 figures, the two of us plan to do some celebrating and include friends to help the process. That means party, and that means you.

We are taking over a bar in central Welly on Sunday the 30th starting in the late afternoon. Do you want to be there? Drop me a line (email address is on my lj details page) and I'll send you the details (we do need confirmation of numbers for catering/planning purposes).

Most people have been distracted by the election earlier in the week, but there is one going on here today. If, like me, you are bored with NZ party politics then why not vote in a much more interesting election.

GUFF is the "Get Up-and-over Fan Fund" or the "Going Under Fan Fund", depending on which way you're going. GUFF assists fans from Europe and Australasia to form closer links, by providing funds for well-known fans from one part of the world to attend a major science fiction convention in the other. The GUFF winners are selected by popular vote amongst fans, after a nomination process. Winners are required to attend a specified convention in the host country, and become administrators until the next winner from their area takes over.

All the nominations are in and you can go read about them over here on the Guff voting page. Why not vote while you are there.

For further information, people are on my flist are also saying nice things about nominees Alisa and Sue Ann & Trevor.

As well as all the voting mechanisms on those links, I am also offering the local fans a special opportunity. I will have voting forms at the Phoenix meeting this coming Wednesday 12th where you can record your preferences and pay your voting donation. Plus as a special offer, I'll cover the foreign exchange fees - so if you cough up NZD10, I'll cover the difference to send the AUD10 donation through to the fund coordinators. If enough of you vote, you can bankrupt me - think of it as a challenge.

At work, we have an employee of the month system. The winner gets various rewards including a special car park - right beside the main entrance and sheltered. Its well away from the building site adjacent spot that the likes of me parks in.

This month the winner does not have a car. So the parking spot got raffled off for charity. I was quite happy to throw a couple of bucks in for the charity but I really wasn't sure that I wanted to win. That building site generates a lot of dust - my car is very dirty. Then lets not forget the seagulls and the salt spray that go with a seaside location. If I had won that spot I'd really have had to clean my car. That is too much to ask for parking convenience.

But today as I was walking back to my car, I noticed that I had grass growing from inside a wheel arch. Yep, that green stuff that they use to make lawns from. It was well rooted in too as I found when I tried to pull it loose. Perhaps now I have to clean my car.

I like to go to author readings at cons (and elsewhere) when time allows. But often they are not well attended. I can't figure this out. They are the best way to really get to the heart of an author's work - after all nobody else knows the work like the author. Likewise, to get a feel for the way the author thinks of their work you should hear how they express that work. Of course some authors express themselves better than others.

Which brings me to Year's Best Australian Science Fiction & Fantasy edited by Bill Congreve and Michelle Marquardt. Specifically, the fourth such edition that Bill & Michelle have put together and I think the best one yet in terms of the average quality of the stories included. Yet one story really stood out from the others - it really spoke to me. I mean really spoke - in the voice of Richard Harland. As soon as I started reading Richard's story, I started to hear it being read to me in his rather distinctive voice. I couldn't shake it - not that I wanted to, it did add to the story. I'm not saying it was better than any of the other stories in the collection, but it is the one I remember the best.

I'm not sure what the message is here, other than if you get the opportunity to hear Richard reading one of his stories then take it.

Its Friday afternoon and I'll soon be on my way home. On the way, I'll pass the premises of a company called ACME Engineering.

How many of you went "beep beep" at that name? The association just never goes away.

For the end of the week, I offer the following. These are supposedly from the autobiography of Chuck Jones, the creator of the Road Runner cartoons. I'm particularly struck by the third rule. But then I always wanted Wile E Coyote to catch that damn bird.

"Rules obeyed in the Coyote-Road Runner Series:"

1. The Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote exept by going "Beep Beep!"

2. No outside force can harm the Coyote - only his own ineptitude or the
failure of the ACME products.

3. The Coyote could stop anytime - IF he were not a fanatic. "A fanatic
is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim" -George
Santayana.

4. No dialogue ever, except "Beep Beep!"

5. The road Runner must stay on the road - otherwise, logically, he would
not be called Road Runner.

6. All Action must be confined to the natural environment of the two
characters - the Southwest American desert.

7. All material, tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be
obtained from the ACME Corporation.

8. Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote's greatest enemy.

9. The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures

I watched an episode of Dead Set last night. Its a E4 (i.e. British) show about a zombie outbreak and how the inhabitants of a Big Brother house cope. The E4 introduction was included on the file and as well as the warning for "extreme" bad language was the instructions that the show was best watched in wide screen, surround sound and with the lights out.

I was pretty meh about the show* but the instruction to watch with the lights out struck a chord. I've always thought that if you want to best engage with a TV show then cutting down the ambient light levels is a good idea because it improves focus on the show. That is to say, it removes other visual distractions. Relate it to the cinema experience where lights are turned off - it isn't just to improve screen contrast levels.

I'm surprised how often there is resistance to the notion of turning the lights off or at least down when watching TV. Any time when we used to have group sessions to watch new shows, I couldn't get people to agree to have the lights down. Just what were they worried about. Sure, in a normal domestic situation if you plan to multi-task or there is somebody else in the room doing something else then you need to keep the lights up. But if you really want to get the best out of a show either on your own or in a group then you should cut out other influences. Of course, most shows aren't worth the effort, but that is a different matter.

*I'm pretty "meh" about zombies generally. Give me big alien monsters any day or better still, just suggest the horror.

Last week on my friends page I noticed a bunch of mentions of Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels. It looked a bit orchestrated, but then again, perhaps not - perhaps just buzz that followed the launch. In any case, to go with that flow, I thought I'd do this post as a bunch of mini posts. Of course it has nothing to do with my inability to string more than a couple of sentences together without losing track of (umm where was I...)

Dymocks in Wellington have this book. They even have it on their main display for the hottest books in the genre. When I congratulated their buyer on giving it prominence, he pointed to the Neil Gaiman quote on the front cover as the reason. An interesting lesson for budding publishers.

Tender Morsels has a couple of elements that would normally really irritate me - odd speech styles (Pseudo-medieval peasant) and a meandering plot line. But while of note, they didn't detract the way such things usually do.

For those of you at Conflux and others who go to cons regularly, its no big deal that I got my copy at a launch event and that it is inscribed by the author to reflect that. But I find that it sometimes really impresses people - go figure.

It isn't a nice book - incest, rape and ingestion by bear feature. Yet the writing style has a light charm while still having emotional power. It is an interesting contrast and it works well. Remember that quote on the front cover - now you can see perhaps why it fits.

Odd devices like switching between first person and third person narrative are usually the tricks of writers who are more interested in style over readability. Yet the book is a page turner - on a wet Labour weekend, it held my attention firmly.

Perhaps there are other authors who write like this. You can see hints of other writers here and there, but overall Lanagan has a distinct voice. I could say that it reads a little as if Gaiman (see above) tried to write a Charles de Lint story set in the sort of village that seems to be the start point for so many "medieval" fantasy trilogies, you might get an idea. But then again you wouldn't.

French onion soup in a cafe that is out and out French in style wasn't what I expected. It was much much better.

There is an argument (made by Harlan Ellison among others) that Robert Silverberg did all his best work in the 1960s and 70s. There were some great novels from that time. But they didn't sell in huge volumes and Silverberg took some time out from writing to assess things. He came back and wrote the Marjipoor books and it was all downhill from there. He may have sold better, but the books never got the critical regard that the earlier work did. When I heard this expressed by Harlan I was quite sceptical - I mean, consider the source. But when I went through a Silverberg bibliography, it was true for me too - all my favourite Silverberg titles came from before the publishing of Lord Valentine's Castle.

So what then to make of Roma Eterna - something quite recent and therefore a long way down the supposed quality slope. Sadly, I found it pretty ordinary. Hard to believe it came from the man who wrote Dying Inside or Nightwings. Roma Eterna isn't bad. It just isn't in any way special.

Roma Eterna is an alternate history of the "Rome never fell" school. In fact, it is a series of connected tales - a fixup of short stories. That is a problem in itself. Each of the short stories contains a recap of the alternative scenario. It gets a bit repetative and could really have done with a proper edit if this book is to be put forward a a single work. I'm not sure it would have helped that much though.

No - this does not make me feel guilty.

Its my blog, so I have no intention of being impartial. Buy Voices. Go on do it because I said so. Why? Just because in the dedications it has the words "For Ross, For giving me the idea...". If you want to know the story, read the introduction.

I might point out that that I did wait until I'd read the book to say this.

markdeniz and

amandapillar have actually created a chilling collection of hotel room related stories. The stories are atmospheric and work well as a collection. But that doesn't matter - my name is in the dedication. Seriously, anybody who wants to put me in their dedication can get a recommendation from me.

It is spring here, so it must be time to look at what I've been watching from the "Fall" season.
( Cut because I'm rambling about TV again )
Of course you disagree. It wouldn't be opinion otherwise. But what have I missed?

Damn - sick again. I'm over the worst of it, but my voice went away for a while there and it is still pretty croaky. I wonder where I could have picked that type of bug up....

As usual when recuperating, I have been reading short stories. This time mostly from a bundle of Asimov's I picked up at the last Phoenix meeting. I worked my way through them and then picked up ASIM #37. As I read it, I could feel my engagement levels rise. The general type of pulp magazine story was the same, but there was something a little more clever about these stories that gave them that edge - that extra quality kick. So, while being in fundamentally in the same space, the small press publication managed to have smarter stories than the professional mass market version. "Managed to" may not be the right words there - perhaps there is an inevitability to the conclusions that can be drawn.

Which is all a round about way of saying well done to

editormum - it was a heck of a good note to end on.

I see that the Ig Nobel nutrition prize has been awarded to Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence of Oxford University, UK, for electronically modifying the sound of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper and fresher than it really is.

Which brings me to the subject of the standard potato chip ("crisps" to you Poms). Apologies to the Conflux attendees who have already heard me rant on this subject. The rants followed from the very first thing I did after I had checked in to the hotel and which is pretty much the first thing I always do when I get to Australia. I went out and bought some Smiths classic potato chips. Why? Because I can't get them at home.

The chips I'm referring to are standard full size crinkle cut and salted with nothing else. Even on the packet it just says peel, slice, fry and season. To my way of thinking, this is the standard default chip. All other chips are variations on it. Yes I know that there were earlier variations, so these chip aren't "original", but that does not preclude them from being the de-facto standard.

In New Zealand you can get plain salted chips with tiny ripples (which make the texture too porous), flat cut, kettle fried and thick cut. You can get chips in dozens of different flavours – anybody who tried roast lamb and mint flavoured chips knows how far out of hand this has become. Not to mention all the vege chips and corn chips on the market. Yet for all those variations, I can't get plain salted chips with full size crinkle cut. They used to be available, but first Bluebird and then Eta discontinued them years ago.

So does anybody out there know of a secret local source of proper potato chips to help me with my problem?

Top Gear Australia. You knew it was going to be wrong. It was wrong. It will always be wrong. Sigh.

Lest my problems with the twin horrors of QANTAS and Sydney Airport along with the weather give the wrong impression, I should record that the days of Conflux in the middle were worth it in such a big way.

Comment is made that Conflux is focussed on writers. I don't think that is quite right. It's a place for people who love books. Notionally, books in a genre, but books is the focus. Sure writing them, but also editing, publishing, reading and writing about them. It makes the people there kindred - we are part of the same family. That commonality of interest allows for differences and diversion (I'm thinking Daleks here) so it can be part of wider fan movements, but for Conflux there is this common heart. I know this may seem contradictory when compared to things I have said in the past about ensuring that fandom is properly inclusive of everybody. But I don't think it is - its just a focus and character that this event has.

Anyway, all I'm saying is that the programme and the dealers and the book launches and most of all the conversations all feed into a single experience for me which I just enjoy so much when I'm at Conflux because I'm connected to the people there. This year it seemed to work better than ever. Well, that and the chocolate.

OK, I've just got to get this out of my system right now. I have just got home safely from Conflux. Remember last year how I complained about all the travel related items that went wrong. Well this year, all (and I mean all) of those bad things happened again PLUS being stranded for time in two cities (one after the other) which were not supposed to be on my itinerary.

Film at eleven.

Ken MacLeod's books have quite a lot of subtle ironic humour in them. Of course, that can be easily confused with the subtle ironic politics. Not to be confused with the big obvious politics. By way of example, look at the alternate history element of The Execution Channel. There is no need to create an alternative recent past for the author to create a near future falling apart because of American economics and terrorism. If anything, it makes the book less credible, yet MacLeod does it anyway - perhaps for a WTF reaction or perhaps for a wry smile. And don't even get me started with the James Blish stuff that he has going on.

This book has MacLeod staying much closer to home than before as the "war on terror" escalates. But in Macleod's world, that war is as much an information war as anything - a disinformation war really. As such, it has all the twists and turns of a cold war spy thriller. Remember in those, the disinformation wasn't just a plot device - it was aimed at the reader so that they didn't quite know who was who and what was going to happen. Same thing in The Execution Channel - with a double helping of extra politics on the side.

Putting all that together, it was highly readable - engrossing even. But at the end, rather unsatisfactory. Perhaps Macleod's sense of humour just got the better of him. As for earlier comments that I have made about his stand-alone books being better than the sequels. Well, this time the sequels have already been written. See above.

Sometimes when you are struggling with a book, you have an "ah ha" moment that turns it around for you. I thought I had such a moment when reading Richard Morgan's fantasy The Steel Remains. I'd been struggling with what looked like an attempt to bust the genre - doing stuff that was "original" in an attempt to create a point of difference. When you try too hard to do something like that, it seldom works - you just have to tell your story in your voice and if difference arises then its all good. Except that what Morgan was doing didn't seem all that original either. Then I had the "ah ha" moment and realised that he was trying to write a Michael Moorcock story. It all fit together and I was able to see what was Moorcock and what was I assumed Morgan's own voice. It made the book so much easier to take. Not that much more enjoyable though - see I have to confess to not being all that big a Moorcock fan. I have been a Morgan fan though - overall it averages out to being readable but not startlingly good.

But getting the influence did make me happy. Well until I read the afterword in the acknowledgements basically said that the influences should have been very obvious. That plus the fact that three influences were cited and I'd only got one of them - perhaps the fact that I hadn't read the others at all is consolation. Lets hope that Morgan goes back to writing with just his own voice.

From

dmw and others...

The GUFF online ballot is available over here.

Or, you can do what I'm going to do and vote at Conflux. Although figuring out which of the really top quality candidates to vote for may be a problem.

The Warriors lost last night. My first thought when I heard that was "good - it means the plane to Sydney won't be full of league fans". I've been quite happy to support the team in their run to the finals, but the moment there is the potential to inconvenience me, I drop them like a sub-prime mortgage. Does that make me a bad person? Don't answer that.

Anyway, by way of atonement, I'll put this request out to the Wellingtonians reading this.

luciusmalfoy and

zwuh are planning to move to Welly. If you have any advice you can share about accommodation, employment and the suchlike, go leave some advice here.

It looks fairly official this time - there are going to be some more Red Dwarf made. It is really only a couple of new episodes proper but that is still good.

But what really got me is the comment that this is being done to celebrate Red Dwarf's 21st birthday. 21 years since it first hit the screens - bloody hell! That makes me feel so old.

I remember when it was first shown here. There was a late night variety show on friday nights - clips, music and various other strangeness. A few of the guys used to watch it from as part of of our regular beer & pizza fridays. But it must have been running out of material because they announced this red dwarf thing that was going to take up a good chunk of the show - it looked like it would be a big bit of filler but the hosts really ramped up the hype. So we watched the first show and were immediately hooked. Season 1 of Red Dwarf became the highlight of the beer and pizza sessions. Little were we to know that it would get even better with subsequent series.

21 years. *shakes head* More about age in the next few weeks.

Well the other day, I did express a liking for the “hard boiled” school of detective fiction. But that wasn’t the reason I picked up a bargain bin copy of Summer Knight by Jim Butcher. I read it because it is a Harry Dresden book and I have been an interested spectator in the car crash that was The Dresden Files TV series and I wanted to see the source material. A series that at its best was very good indeed but just as often descended to just plain awful – it is hard to think of another series so inconsistent on a show by show basis.

However hardboiled detective fiction is what I got from the book. Harry Dresden could easily be Philip Marlowe with lots of added magical stuff. I say “stuff” because it seems hard to identify anything coherent in the great gobs of standard fantasy tropes layered into the setting and story. But the core of the story follows the Raymond Chandler model exactly – the main character being dysfunctional with authority figures, the multiple commissions, the succession of violent encounters, the clues dropped in as incidentals, unspecified but obvious sexual motivations, violent deaths and personal injury for the main character who keeps going anyway. You get the picture – it would be mean to say that this is paint by numbers writing because it is very well executed and makes for an entertaining read, yet that is the impression. Then again, what should you expect – this is genre writing in an extended series – two genres in fact. This is what you get and judgement should be made within those parameters.

It occurs to me that the above observations are very obvious. The same thing, in all sorts of variations, must have been said by countless reviewers. Butcher’s work is very popular and the parallels with Chandler are not subtle. Except that I don’t know if that is the case. I haven’t read large numbers of reviews of the Dresden books, so the observations are new to me. After all, this is just a journal of my personal opinions. Chances are that viewed in the context of other reviews, what I have to say could be viewed as trite and predictable. On the other hand, perhaps that just means that everybody is correct.

I suppose I should actually go research all those reviews now to see if my supposition above is correct. Perhaps nobody reads Chandler and his legion of disciples any more and the connection does not get made. But, you know what, that would be even more disturbing to discover than the thought of being just one more voice in the crowd.