Thoughts about something I’ve recently read.
Lots of events have been happening in Metaplace lately, but this one, you might guess, is near and dear to my heart: a poetry open mic. 🙂 It is happening in WritersForumWorld in about half an hour (1pm Pacific time).
The WritersForum guys have been working to try to get a virtual workshop going as well.
We’re gearing up soon for even more events, so it’s worth following along with the events calendar. In the meantime, stop by for this one!
The Guardian is reporting that David Eddings has died.
I stopped reading Eddings long ago, but for me mention of him or The Belgariad (books 1-3, books 4 & 5) will always conjure up sundrenched days in Barbados, where I lived when I first read him. We haunted Cave Shepherd (a duty-free department store) on Broad Street searching for imported American paperbacks, because most bookstores in Barbados carried just “beach reading” at the time, and that meant almost nothing a budding geek would read.
They were sunny books, in the end, part of that wave of light fantasy in the late 70s and 80s when there was a lot less gore and a lot more humor in your swordplay (well, except for the Thomas Covenant books, which I read at the same time). I remember a frisson of awe when I thought that The Prophecy that guided the action in the novel (unusually, a speaking character in the books) was actually the author himself talking straight to his protagonist. I also recall my disappointment when it became clear that the book wasn’t nearly as gutsy as that. By the time we got to The Malloreon (books 1-3, books 4 & 5), my writerly mind had started mapping the action chapter by chapter, noting that there was actually the same set of characters and even broadly the same set of actions occurring in the same order — talk about a formula!
But it doesn’t matter — like so many other books, they were perfect for an age, and an ageless time in this case — 15 years old and bicycling around, hacking away at some game programming, a light introduction to metafiction and a paperback in my back pocket.
Sometimes hard-boiled stuff pops up in genres you wouldn’t expect it. I mean, I think most fantasy fans are probably familiar by now with Butcher’s Dresden series (start with Storm Front). But I suspect most haven’t taken a deeper look and found Liz Williams’ Detective Inspector Chen series, set in a future Singapore where all mythologies are apparently real. The first one is Snake Agent, and there are two more after that, The Demon and the City and Precious Dragon. Inspector Chen works the supernatural beat, dealing especially with cases where Hell and Heaven intercede, and ends up partnered with a demon. He’s got a motley assortment of sidekicks, and the tone moves from gritty to somewhat madcap.
Similarly, I have recommended Tamora Pierce’s stuff before, even though it is hidden away in the young adult fantasy section. Her first book featuring Beka Cooper, Terrier, was a seriously hardboiled adventure, and the long-awaited follow-on, Bloodhound, is similar. This time there’s a counterfeiting ring that necessitates a trip to a port city, there’s political corruption, thieves’ rings, prostitution, the works. Check out what kids are reading these days…
Finally, the series that prompted this post in the first place is the unfortunately difficult to find pair of Sarah Tolerance books by Madeleine Robins, perhaps better known as the author of The Stone War, which was a rather well-reviewed book. I got pointed to these from John Hemry’s website (he who now writes under the name Jack Campbell), and I took his advice to look past the cover art — because despite the look of a romance novel, these are actually “hard-boiled Regency” novels. Sarah Tolerance is a Ruined Woman who now works as an “agent of inquiry.” Her lover was a dueling master, so she’s handy with a sword, and she lives in a small cottage behind her aunt’s upscale brothel; her cases take her from locating a mysterious Italian fan with great political consequences in Point of Honour to clearing a well-reared lady’s name when her husband is found bludgeoned to death in her bed in Petty Treason. The detail is extraordinary, and if you think Regency must mean romance, these are the books with which to learn about “birching houses” (Regency S&M parlors) and other underbellies of polite society. The novels even take place in a slightly alternate history, so you can even justify them from an SF/F perspective if you want. Highly recommended — it is very unfortunate there are only two.
Funny how small the world is — I found Robins’ blog, only to get pointed to a site where she co-blogs with a number of other folks including several favorites of mine. And lo, there’s Caroline Spector, better known to many readers of this blog as the wife of Warren Spector, but a fine writer in her own right.
In any case — if you’re tired of mundane gritty mysteries, these all make a fine change of pace.
Mint.com is a personal finance site that won the judges’ award at TechCrunch40 the same year that Metaplace won the audience award. It helps you do budgeting and other such dull tasks, all in slick interface.
Despite the zillions of products out there to do this, we still managed to wheel, deal, and borrow ourselves into a financial crisis (that is still ongoing, though swine flu may be eclipsing it just now). Clearly, something was lacking in the appeal here, for if said product category were truly successful, we wouldn’t be in this fix.
Now, Mint is in closed beta on a feature that turns personal finance into a game, complete with points earned for doing things like socking away some cash into the savings account each month, or switching to a credit card with annual rewards. Get enough points in a sustained way, and you too can be a Financial Guru.
This seems like a fairly straightforward harnessing of game-style incentive systems towards a laudable goal (though I should note that said credit card with rewards is likely from one of Mint’s partners). But honestly — money is points anyway, isn’t it? Why is it that we value the cash less than the flat-screen TV?
Hugo Nominations are out, and oof, I don’t think I could pick Best Novel from this bunch! Besides, I know three of the authors, one of them might beat me up if I favor the others.
- Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi (Tor)
- Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Morrow; Atlantic UK)
- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury UK)
- Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen; HarperVoyager UK)
- Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
The comics category is equally tough, with Fables and Y: The Last Man‘s conclusion both up as well as Girl Genius Volume 8, which isn’t actually quite out yet in book form, which means that a webcomic is nominated this year!
Oh, and Dr. Horrible in the Short Form Dramatic category.
