Black Gate

I made a fascinating discovery today. I was reading one of the books by the dead George Carlin (if I called him ‘the late’ or ‘the lamented’ George Carlin, he would rise from the dead and crush my skull), enjoying some great laughs from his satirical observations about people and government. I then put down that book and picked up a collection of essay by the equally dead philosopher Bertrand Russell. And I found that his opinions, tone, and attitudes were exactly the same as Carlin’s. Not only that, they were just as funny. “Another way in which good men can be useful is by getting themselves murdered.” That’s brilliant. I realized at that instant that George Carlin is Bertrand Russell as a stand-up act.

I’m telling you all this to fill up space on this post. I’ve had a busy weekend, most of it a highly positive busy, but nonetheless busy. So I haven’t had the opportunity to carefully craft one of my more ponderous reviews. So instead I’ll sling at you a writing exercise that I did a few weeks ago. Writers looking for an engaging experiment might want to try it.

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Neil Gaiman recently dismissed fan entitlement regarding George R.R. Martin with a memorable line–as memorable now as when it was coined in the comment section of John Scalzi’s blog 2 or 3 months ago (see comment 258 by “Tully” , who may be Neil Gaiman incognito, for all I know). Pointing out that writers are not machines is maybe a less abusive way to respond to the same concern (see comment 136 on the Whatever thread linked above). NG’s conclusion is that “George R. R. Martin is not working for you.” This undoubted truth is not really on point, though.

By the way: I am not one of the people who are chewing their nails down to their elbows waiting for the next “Song of Ice and Fire” volume. I read the first book, liked it a lot (though certain plotlines moved with what seemed to me glacial slowness, I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily a bad thing). But I resolved not to read any more until he was done with the thing, because I was sure it would take a significant chunk of a working lifetime to complete and I didn’t want to suffer through the agonizingly long wait between installments.

I do, however, buy each one as it comes out, for the benefit of a SoIaF addict I live with. I’m not suggesting that GRRM owes me anything, except the book I’m actually buying when I plonk coin down for one of his books. But neither do I or the other coin-plonkers have to go on plonking our coins.

Fan entitlement may indeed be pernicious, but it can only exist in the presence of a fan base which is a good thing. It doesn’t seem to me that directing abuse towards GRRM’s fan base does GRRM any long-term favor.

Oh where have you been, Lord Randall, my son,
Oh where have you been, my handsome young man?

Not to the greenwood, that’s for sure, and not eating eels and toadstools, though sometimes the job application process (not to mention the writing career) can feel like it. Let’s just chalk up my recent absence from this space to life generally and move on. Though, parenthetically, it’s strange how fragments of ballads you haven’t heard in decades can suddenly breach the darkness. Now I can’t get the impossible-to-sing tune out of my head….

We read together as a family at my son’s bedtime and have been making our way through Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain. It wears well after all the years (I won’t say how many) since I first read it. We also recently saw Paul Blart: Mall Cop. That was not an experience I want to repeat in the decades to come, but the momentary temporal conjunction of the two got me thinking about the humiliation of the hero as a trope. It’s an exceedingly common one in comedy, and I can think of a zillion examples in movies, everything from Bridget Jones’ Diary to There’s Something about Mary. That it’s uncomfortable to watch (at least I find it so) even while I’m laughing (sometimes, anyway) must have something to do with the cathartic value of comedy–the second half of the arc in that genre is success, especially romantic success, and among other things the hero’s humiliation makes his/her success all the sweeter. …

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A few posts ago, I asked if, given current economic and political conditions, the next thematic trend in SF and fantasy will be a return to woeful tales of doom and disaster. Sure enough, lately I’m coming across signs that the zeitgeist might be finding a warm place in Cold War era end-of-the-world narratives.

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal there’s a short review of Genesis by Bernard Beckett.  Yeah, I know, the title is cringe-inducing, but it actually fits (both the title and the author’s surname), at least according to writer Jeffrey Trachetenberg’s description:

…survivors in a world destroyed by nuclear and biological weapons are forced to re-think what makes the human species special…the issue of machine self awareness emerges as pivotal.

Not exactly original, but, then again, “nothing is new under the sun” as Ecclesiastes noted back in antiquity and, as Trachetenberg notes, revisiting this time honored trope is in part a result of “deep-rooted international concerns about such issues as global warming and the 9/11 attacks.”

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