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There is a coherent thought in my head struggling to get out past the clutter. Well I hope it is coherent. Past history would suggest that it is unlikely to be in any way profound but I want to get it out anyway. I going to try the the "start writing and see what happens" tactic, so my apologies if this turns into an incoherent mess.

The trigger was reading the second issue of New Ceres. It has excellent stories by Lucy Sussex, Jay Lake, Stephen Dedman, and Cat Sparks and so is a very enjoyable reading experience. If you need more reasons to read it,

benpayne has lots of them. But what I'm trying to grapple with is how I see shared worlds. It's not that there isn't some good work done in them but it isn't very much either. Or perhaps it is just that I usually find it very hard to engage with such writing. It isn't too hard to find why that may be.

First I'm not a big fan of arbitrary constraints. Everything including writing has fundamental constraints. These are the things which define the art form and genre within that. Beyond that though people try to add extra bounds. I'm thinking here of things like the number of lines in a sonnet or the word count in a drabble. I can see why a writer might enjoy the challenge of some extra rules but I don't see what this adds for the reader (i.e. me) - it just takes attention away from what I consider to be the core of the writing. Sure you can point to great works but I'm not convinced that the rules helped the work or that they were great despite the rules. But then again, perhaps the constraint provides inspiration for the writer. A shared world scenario can be seen as just another set of rules. But do the rules just impose an arbitrary constraint or are they inspiration. I'm pretty sure that most fanfic writers would answer that they are inspired because they want to work in somebody elses universe. That brings me to the second point.

At the core of the SF genre is a fundamental constraint. If you are working in this genre then you are working in a world view that is "other" - not the known world but something that is different. It may be as subtle as allowing a little weird magic to creep into our known world or as fundamental as building a whole new set of planets and species. The important thing is that writing in this genre involves building something extra into the world not just working with what is there (i.e. here). This extra element is why I personally read this genre and not others. I cannot speak for other people but this element of world creation is totally necessary for me in what I read. If a writer is sharecropping or otherwise inhabiting another world then I don't think that they necessarily put that creative component in their work. They may do, but they don't have to and on the evidence of what I have seen they don't do it very often. Again I emphasise that this need for a creative worldbuilding component is a personal need and not one that everybody shares. I'm also aware that I'm touching on the vexed area of the distinction between creative and original and that is a whole other discussion - I'll just say that you don't need to be original to be creative but just copying somebody elses world is neither of these.

I think the summary of all the above is that in order for a shared world series to work for me it has to do the following
a) The shared world should be a platform to inspire not just be a constraint that authors find amusing to work within.
b) The writers cannot simply use the world as provided - they have to expand and create it as they go.
c) It should go without saying that the writers also need to tell a good story with good characters etc.

The writers in the second issue of New Ceres managed to pull this off which is why I enjoyed it. It is hard to think of many other such examples. Wild Cards was cited by somebody and I can agree with that. There may be others but I'm hard pressed to think of what they are right now.

I am indebted to

thoatherder for pointing out that I don't watch enough TV with ads in it. Actually, I'm happy with that situation but not so happy with the other side of it. I have seen an awful lot of TV shows where the ads have been removed. With the current season finishing in the states, it is worth taking stock and seeing just how much that is. A lot. A lot a lot. A lot a lot a lot. These from the last year or so:
( Cut more for length than spoilers but there might be a few )
I have probably forgotten a few and this isn't even considering the older series I have obtained and watched as well as various series I only gave one or two episodes before discarding. Plus, of course, this is only the fiction series. The wonderful Top Gear and QI are pretty much the top of my watching list along with Mythbusters and any documentary produced by Michael Wood. It is no wonder I'm not getting enough reading done.

Actually I'm quite disturbed by how big this list is. I intend to watch considerably less next season. It may well be a good thing so many shows got canceled.

[EDIT: It isn't as bad as it seems - a little calculation shows that this amounts to less than half an hour per day]

Waaaaay way back when I was in the 5th form, we studied the history of universal suffrage in Britain*. It was a long and complex process involving many twist and turns with big political battles along the way. One of the key steps was the abolition of multiple voting. Back in the 19th century there was a time where if you owned property in multiple electorates (borough, county whatever) then you could vote in each of those electorates. Abolishing that was just one step in the process that led to full universal suffrage in 1928.

Today, with the rates bill, I received a flyer from "New Zealand Local Authority Electoral Officers". It contains this headline: "Do you live in one area and pay rates on a property in another?" "Then you may qualify to vote in more than one local authority election this October."

Well OK, I understand the reason and why it may be appropriate, but doesn't it just typify where our local body politics still reside - somewhere in the mid 19th century.

*Why Britain and not our own country. Well we did cover that too - it took the teacher about 10 minutes.

Choosing a book from my "to read" shelf can be tricky. Just what book am I in the mood for? Sometimes the choice can be completely arbitrary. This time I picked out a book because the spine was so faded that I couldn't read the author. The book was The Alien Way by Gordon R Dickson. I am not sure how I came to own this book. While I have read Dickson's work before, I am not in the habit of buying his stuff these days. The only think I can think of is that it came mixed in with a pile of John Brunner books I bought a few years back. It has languished unread on the shelf all that time.

It is a book with a message. But it isn't a message just dropped in a big dollop in an otherwise unrelated story the way I was complaining about Iain Banks doing recently. This time the message and the story are fundamentally linked - the way it should be done. The author has decided on the message and created a scenario in which he can express it. In this case that scenario is a first contact situation with an alien race. How will humanity survive this collision of culture. So what is the message? Well reduced to its simplest form I believe it says "we should do more basic research into behavioural psychology". Hardly earth shattering you may think. But remember that this book was written in the mid 1960s. That kind of stuff was big back then. It is still relevant today - especially in this country. There isn't enough fundamental research going on. The people controlling the money are too concerned with application rather than what is underlying everything. Still, you don't see many writers these days bothering to base a story around such a theme.

There isn't much more to say about the book except that it uses the plot structure of the lone man (always a man) who knows best against all the rest of the world. By strength of character this man prevails and saves the world. I'm not all that sad to see this particular literary device lose favour with the SF community.

I have a cold. Nothing serious - just a bit of a sniffle really. Anyway, I thought I'd look after myself and wrap up warmly and watch a DVD. I looked through my collection and found something light and fun. It wasn't until after I started watching it that I realised just how appropriate it was that I chose Cold Comfort Farm. Well I was amused.

There is something about the DVD of this film that I really like. Something that other production companies should take note of. When you put the disk in the drive, it immediately boots to the main menu. No preliminary anti-piracy notices and the like, no trailers for other films and no overblown animated opening sequences for the production company that you cannot bypass. You can go from putting the disk in to watching the film in just a couple of seconds. I appreciate that.

It is quite common for TV shows to drop you into the middle of their character relationships. The team is all together doing their stuff and the viewer gets dropped in the middle of it. Obviously the writer of the pilot for such a show has to do things to introduce the characters. Adding a new person to an existing team is a common ploy. The networks like this for pace reasons. They are trying to avoid the lack of action that a "getting to know you" show may require. Not all shows do this by any means but to my eyes it is becoming more common. When they do use this technique, sooner or later there is usually a show where origins are explored as flashbacks - I'm sure The Simpsons have had half a dozen of them by now.

In the written form, there is more time to develop relationships from the start so that is the way authors go for it. It just makes sense really. Christopher Fowler does not see it that way. He has written a number of books with his Bryant and May characters ("Oh just like the matches" "Nothing like them at all!"). In Full Dark House, the majority of the action takes place in flashback as May remembers their first case together while investigating a bombing in modern London. That first case happened in 1940 during The Blitz and involved a number of strange murders.

Fowler writes about London. It is the real strength of his books. This time the setup looks perfect - modern London with terrorists and out of control elements contrasted with WW2 London. All that and a spooky and mysterious building too - it should be perfect. But it is too much. There are too many elements and they just get in the way of each other. In fact the whole book feels cluttered. For the first time in one of Fowler novels, I didn't feel that the setting was a real character in the story, although you can tell it is supposed to work that way. It doesn't help that the murder mystery feels like a reject from one of those cheesy '60s Hammer Horror movies. It did however give me a greater appreciation of Orpheus in the Underworld and that can't be entirely bad.

I want to like Sanctuary. I like the idea of a "TV" series made available entirely by download. It appeals as it gets the idiots at the networks out of the loop. The question is whether a subscription service download can be financially viable yet without the revenue from the broadcast side. That remains to be seen. Based on what I have seen so far, I'm going to to take some convincing.

( Where I rabbit on some more about the show )

There is a new Australian FFANZ administrator. Go read about it on the

aust_sf_fan_fun community or over at the FFANZ web site.

If you prefer the short version: The new FFANZ delegate is David Cake from Perth. Congratulations Dave.

The Hubble has spotted a ring of dark matter. To even see it indirectly, they have to use gravity lensing of "a colossal smash-up between two galaxy clusters". Phew.

Sometimes an author can really surprise you. I have read a few of Liz Williams' books and had formed a fairly clear opinion about them. They were a light enjoyable modern space opera with straightforward plots, simple characters and little in the way of subtext but written in a clean readable prose style. However, the buzz was that Darkland was different and this certainly proved to be the case.

The opening of Darkland is very intense - rape, assassination and religious oppression are forced into your consciousness. The writing in the first 40 pages of this book are very powerful. It sets the scene and the tone for the rest of the book. The scene is still that of a space opera but the tone is dark and laden with meaning. The writing for the rest of the book is not so powerful, but then I don't think you could stand reading at that level all the way through. What the big start does is give the rest of the book a momentum. The lean prose style just allows that momentum to be maintained.

But there is more than a big start that sets this book apart from Williams' other work. Structurally it is more complex than usual - a dual POV narrative helps with pacing and keeps tension high. More than this though is the strong subtextual theme of dominance in relationships that underpins the story. This fleshes out the characters but is important in its own right. Taking it all together it makes for a truely excellent piece of fiction.

( inconsequential coda )

Blistering barnacles indeed. It appears that Stephen Spielberg and Peter Jackson are collaborating to make Tin Tin movies. They might even make a decent job of them. *crosses fingers*

The Sir Julius Vogel award nominations are available on the SFFANZ web site.

I have a considerable amount to say about the process that finally led to this, but I don't propose to discuss that here. Buy me a drink at the con and I'll explain all. In the end, I'm happy with the ballot and congratulate all the nominees.

As I have said before, I enjoy a good rant - even when I don't necessarily agree with what is being ranted about. I'm not so fussed about preaching. The distinction in my mind being the difference in intent. A strong expression of ones own opinions is qualitatively different from an attempt to ram those opinions down your throat with an intent to convert you. More specifically, I'm not very fond of blatant preaching type messages being shoehorned into a novel - even if I agree entirely with the message. The context here is that I have just read The Steep Approach to Garbadale by Iain Banks and it contains a number of embedded mini-sermons on global warming and American imperialism. They jarred rather badly. If you are going to put a message in your fiction, please weave it through the narrative so that it is integral - don't just drop it in by the dirty great handful.

Now that I have that off my chest I can report that the rest of the book is a rather charming and engrossing read. It is one of those personal discovery books where the thin to non-existent plot is subservient to exploring the nature of the character. In this case a main character and a family who he interacts with. Told with flashbacks and a number of short POV changes the book explores those things while a thin and predictable mystery plot chugs along providing a semblance of structure. There are riffs on friendship and love along with the family interactions which combine to make relationships the real story. Where I really admire Banks is his ability to make this stuff move of its own volition. Too many times deep character examination via introspection will bog a book down but that does not happen here. This may reduce the intensity a bit but I don't think that is a bad thing as long as the character engagement is there - which it is.

For the quality of the writing and the depth of the characters, I really like this book - pity about the pulpit work.

Repeating what I said over on

aust_sf_fan_fun.

Last night, I managed to catch up with Norman Cates the current downunder DUFF delegate. He reports that there is still no nominee to go to the USA this year for their natcon (NASFiC). Therefore if you or somebody you know are interested in taking on the role and making the trip to Archon 31 in Illinois in early August then the opportunity is still there. But you have to make a move now. Norman says that if it is to be done then it has to be done quickly because of the time it takes to sort out travel etc.

So get to it. If you are interested, drop Norman a line at the address on the web page.

I'm happy. Try to figure out which of these two items is the cause of my happiness:

1 - The Sir Julius Vogel award nominations are out and I have been nominated for "Best Fan Writing" for this blog.

2 - It was the Phoenix AGM tonight and after the elections I am no longer on the committee of the club.

Yes, it is the second one that pleases me. I feel like a big weight has been lifted off me.

Ten years ago, I set the quiz for Conspiracy, the NZ natcon for that year. This year, some of the same crew are back with the natcon for this year - Conspiracy 2. I don't think that they remember that I did the quiz back at the first one, but this time I was asked if I would present the quiz this year. The key word there is "present". Somebody else was going to construct the quiz but wasn't able to deliver it. They just wanted me to run the presentation of the questions, manage the markers etc. I said yes.

Last night, I got the questions. They were not in anything like a ready to present state. Just a list of questions that were not organised into a presentation (the quiz is to be done as a slideshow type presentation). Worse, most of the questions are not usable in their current state - questions too hard, answers too long, questions ambiguous, answers not checked (i.e. wrong), questions requiring vague descriptive answers - all the usual rookie mistakes really.

Q - What to do? A - Moan and complain and then say "leave it to me". I can put a quiz together pretty quickly these days. I even thought about recycling chunks of the one I did for the first Conspiracy. Looking at it however I was surprised by how the years had affected it. All my topical TV/Film questions are now relegated to ancient history and even the book based ones are made harder by temporal distance.

Any volunteers to act as markers/scorers for me?

I read the book and started musing on the whole art verses craft discussion. The more I thought, the muddier the subject became. It really is a minefield. In lieu of that whole discussion, instead for Sabriel by Garth Nix I asked the following two questions:
Does this book advance the realms of understanding or illuminate the human condition or do something unique? No.
Does this book engage the reader, tell a story in an entertaining manner and create interesting characters? Yes.

Make of that what you will. Sabriel is another of the YA fantasy titles I have been reading with a view to seeing how well they work for the target age group as well as an adult audience. Of course, to be entertained too. The book does work across the age ranges and I think it is for the same reason as the De Lint book I read last week. In both cases the author knows the difference between simplifying and dumbing down. The plots have been made more linear and direct and the characters avoid some themes but otherwise the reader is treated as intelligent and able to engage fully in the book. Is it really just as simple as respecting your audience and treating them like thinking people? Even if it isn't, shouldn't that be happening anyway?

Reasons why New Zealand and Australia will never unify - #12: Addresses.

I was filling out an online registration form earlier. It was for a local only product from the local subsidiary of a dutch based multi-national. I know they have a local presence because I walked past their head office today. The form contained fields for my address as follows: address, suburb, state and postcode. In other words, an Australian format address. I was just a bit irked because the creators of the form had obviously used a form designed for Australia and hadn't bothered to change the fields to be appropriate to the people using it.

It got me thinking again about the standard Aussie address format. I have had plenty of reason to contemplate it in the past. Back when I was at the BNZ, we shared a fraud detection system with the National Australia Bank. We had to format data out of one of our local systems to send it to this shared system over the Tasman. The problem was that the target system was set up for Australian style addresses and we had huge difficulties mapping our address data into the correct fields. The problem being that we had both a suburb field and a town/city field to deal with. The issue proved quite a tricky one and ultimately meant the system was not as effective as it should have been for us. About the time I left, a replacement system just for New Zealand was being trialled.

I understand why the Australian system works the way it does. A population distribution has the majority of the people concentrated in the capital cities means that town/city is less important than suburb and state for a large chunk of the population. It is not the same here. In fact I wonder if anybody has come across the same system anywhere. What other odd addressing systems are there out there? The British have always claimed to have the most precise method of defining an address. I wonder who has the most confusing.

One last picture before I go back to incoherent rambling about what I read, but I know there a few lovers of feline cuteness out there. This lion cub was at the Paradise Valley Wildlife Park.

Have you ever watched one of those low budget SF movies where all the action takes place in a quarry. A desolate and blasted landscape - yes? If perchance you are planning that kind of look for your movie then you might want to consider setting it at Hells Gate. After you have had hot mud, you will never go back to cold rock.
( Pix below cut )

Going to Rotorua means that you go look at things that steam and bubble and smell bad. The brochures for these places all claim to be the best and most impressive. We decided on Waimangu because it is the site of the 1886 Tarawera eruption which opened up a 17k long series of craters. The attraction is a 4k stretch of those craters plus a boat ride on lake Rotomahana. The idea was to walk the 4K down to the lake and take the bus back up. We missed the bus. Fine for the fit types in out little party. I, on the other hand, was completely totally knackered. I did manage to take some photos however.

( Photos be here )

I didn't get a lot of reading done while on holiday. I read bits from some SJV nominated stuff and Striped Holes by Damien Broderick. The latter was a humourous offering from the Sheckley school of silliness. It is the type of book where a skeleton plot is arranged so a whole bunch of witty or just plain silly sequences can be attached to it. The success or failure of the book being determined by how many of those sequences work for the reader. For me, the answer was some but probably not quite enough although it was pleasantly diverting.

The thing is, I'm not a big fan of simple silliness. Giving a character a silly name (Sopworth Hammil) isn't really all that funny. I need cleverness with just a bit of satirical bite - that is to say, I need wit in what I read. To be fair, I think the author was trying for that a fair bit, but it didn't always work. When it did, it was very good - there is a sequence where "god" describes how he got that role by being granted three wishes by a genie which really sticks in my mind. It is also worth noting that this book would probably have been funnier when it was first published - topical references erode over time. I realise that this is a very minor work in terms of Broderick's output - perhaps I had better find a more major one.

I'm not obsessed. Really, I'm not. Well, OK the first thing I did after getting back from 5 days away from home and the Internet was to turn on my computer and read my flist. You have been busy. But to prove that I'm not completely obsessed, I have forced myself away without comments. Really, that proves I'm OK - right? I'm even going to leave writing about the trip until tomorrow.

( OK, perhaps just the one picture )

Happy birthday

gillpolack. Since we have all been given a day off to mark the occasion, I'm off to RotoVegas for the rest of the week. See y'all on the flip side.

I read The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint. It is a YA novel with teen protagonists aimed at an early teen market. I has an invisible realm of ghosts, angels and fairies - pretty much the usual de Lint scenario. Right from the start, I cannot help but make comparison between this book and China Mieville's Un Lun Dun which I read recently. One thing which was very noticable for me was that the Mieville book did not work at an adult level. However The Blue Girl works find for anybody from 13 years old and upwards really. It isn't the often trotted out line about multiple levels that gives this book this quality. It is simply that the main characters, despite being teenagers, are able to be related to by anybody. Why in this case and not in the other?

The Mieville book felt dumbed down for its young audience. Not quite patronising but there was a definite feeling of an adult patting a kid on the head and saying "I've got a nice little story for you". Charles de Lint does not do that. Sure he makes the story more linear and direct than he would otherwise and some concepts and aspects of life are omitted. But these omissions are not because kids aren't smart enough to understand them - its just that they relate to the kind of things which come along later in life. In fact, I would say de Lint expects his audience to be smart and aware. I think it is this quality that really helps transcend the target audience barrier. Of course he still has to have the skill to bring the characters the life and tell their story but that was never in doubt with this author. I note that this book made a bunch of lists for recommended teen reading. It just made mine too.

I have no words.

The story: a group of George Bush voting, Fox news watching Americans with superior weaponry are inserted into another country. They pacify the locals and invading armies and their neighbours. They bring their political system and way of life to the locals who embrace them with fervour and gratitude. The world is a better place because the Americans had imposed their will. A Republican party strategist's wet dream? No it is 1632 by Eric Flint.

( 1632 and all that )

One of the great things about George R R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, apart from actually reading them that is, is that its popularity means that George's back list is being re-released. Apart from the recent big collection of his short fiction, I have also purchased and read The Armageddon Rag. I liked it a lot.
( Cut just because I can... )

I have commented about expectation before. It is a tricky thing. How your expectations are set going into something colour your resulting opinions. Coming into Drive, my expectations were all over the place. First it is a Tim Minear show starring Nathan Fillion - that just has to be great right? But it is another show for Fox, disappointment awaits. Also it isn't SF - not necessarily a minus at all but I tend to give genre shows a bit longer. The premise seems a bit hokey - a cross country race seems so lame. But then again it promises all sorts of mysterious Lost type stuff. Actually, that may not be a plus - derivative is not usually good. So I really didn't know where my expectations were at so that I could allow for them. Why not just watch the show.

Two episodes in. I am so hooked. Forget the rest, this is now my #1 priority.

I bet Fox cancel it after 5 episodes.

So why do you choose a book? Is it the pretty coloured cover or is it because you have done some research - checked the back cover, reviews etc for signs that you may enjoy it. A lot of the time you probably look at the author. If it is somebody you know and like then you buy the book. In the case of movies it would seem to be more complex. Apart from* glitz, research and writer methods there are folk who will choose on director, producer or the actors. The actor reason being, I suspect, one of the most common reasons and just a little depressing. Except, perhaps books have some of that going on too. I'm thinking of series books where people follow the character - there are people who will buy any Conan book regardless of whether it is Howard's genius or some other hack's rubbish. Even for a series by a single author there is an effect. How many people buy George R R Martin books other than from the big series - only a minority.

The above poorly thought-out ramble triggered because I have just read Motor Mouth by Janet Evanovich. It is a nice light read on a cold wet day but the significant thing is that it is not a Stephanie Plum book. Rather, it is the second of the Alexandra Barnaby books. As I commented for the first one, Metro girl, it is probably a little better than a Stephanie Plum book - similar in tone but with a better story. Yet I'm willing to bet it does not sell anywhere near as well. Certainly the speed with which it hits the remainder piles locally suggests sluggish sales. Presumably people have engaged with Ms Plum's character. In other words, the readers are Stephanie Plum fans first and Janet Evanovich fans second. Is that a problem? Probably not but it makes you think.

*I'm obviously leaving some other things out here - like being available in a suitable time slot, peer pressure or being ridiculously susceptible to advertising.

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