Balls and Walnuts
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Category Archives: Books ‘n’ Authors
Ox tail stew for the muse
How’s that for a book title? Forget chicken soup; even the best leaves me hungry. Ox tail stew, on the other hand, is the quintessential meal in a bowl. Give the muse a bit of metaphorical ox tail stew and she’ll be good for a week. (more…)
Alien psychology
In case you missed it, PBW had a wonderful post on the “don’ts” of writing fiction (Paperback Writer: How Not To). Pearls galore. Some time soon, I hope to blog on my own list of don’ts.
In the comments, one of F. O’Brien Andrew’s “don’ts” struck me. Paraphrasing: in science fiction, make your aliens physically bizarre but psychologically human. This is a don’t, mind you.
This is an interesting “don’t” because it gets at the root of an interesting dichotomy in the science fiction audience. Some folks read SF exclusively for the wow factor. These readers go into ecstasies over authors who can deliver extraterrestrials who are alien body and soul. (more…)
Jews to the right of me, Jews to the left of me
New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks might tick me off as an Op-Ed guy, but he writes a provocative book review. In the November 6 NYT Book Review, he looks at Jerome Karabel’s scholarly work, The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
Karabel’s book focuses on a quiet revolution which occurred on Ivy League campuses over the course of the 20th century. In the early 1900s, non-White Anglo-Saxon Protestants didn’t bother to apply to these schools; yet “Jews, for reasons that are not clear, never got the message. They applied to Harvard, Yale and Princeton even though they weren’t really wanted. And because many were so academically qualified, they increasingly got in.” (more…)
Life with Fred
In my library of books on writing, none is more idiosyncratic than Damon Knight’s Creating Short Fiction. (My favorite book on writing, in case you’re wondering, is John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction. That’s where I go whenever I need reassurance that it’s all worthwhile.)
You may remember Knight as the author of To Serve Man (“It’s . . . a cookbook!”) Creating Short Fiction is his first person/intensely personal compendium of advice for novice writers. He gives the reader lots of snarkworthy passages, not least of which his annotated story “Semper Fi.” I don’t want to indulge my snark glands, however. I give Knight a hell of a lot of credit for throwing himself into this book so wholeheartedly. (more…)
Dream teams and novel combinations
Commuting theme music: Cowboy Junkies, 200 More Miles
Driving to work, I was (yet again) impressed by the richness of Margo Timmins’s vocals, and I thought: wouldn’t it be great to hear her produced by David Lynch’s favorite musical wonk, Angelo Badalamenti? Badalamenti did wonders for the ethereal Julee Cruise. Badalamenti + Timmins = sultry meltdown.
That thought automatically led to my other musical fantasy, 10,000 Maniacs’ Natalie Merchant produced by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor. I love Natalie’s voice, but 10,000 Maniacs’ lyrics and music make me want to take a nap. Like Margo Timmins, I just know Natalie Merchant can belt out an edgy alternative rock song.
Blogging about music is, I suspect, a no win situation, since most of my audience won’t be familiar with these artists. I would have to stick to the well known names, which, with rare exception, are people I don’t give a damn about. “Wouldn’t it be interesting if Elton John did covers of The Cure’s greatest hits?” That sort of thing. (Stomach-turning, actually, but it was the first example that came to mind.) That’s why I’ve decided to focus on cinematic pop culture for my remaining fantasy items. Feel free to post your dream combos in the comments. (more…)
Stephen Colbert soliciting fan fic
Yeah, you heard me! Stephen Colbert, lately of The Daily Show, now of the eponymous Report, wants your fan fic. Here are the guidelines, which I have lifted from Stephen’s blog:
No show to recap this morning, but we’ve got plenty in store this week! We’re finally going to start posting some of the excellent fan fiction you guys have been sending in – keep ’em coming! I do want to remind you all that we have certain ground rules, which some people have been breaking. Specifically:
- All fanfics must be broken up into chapters, and sent in piece-by-piece. I appreciate the effort you put into The Colbert Odyssey: Search for the Codex of Wisdom, Shelly F. of Piedmont, KY, but sending me a 1700-page novel via overnight mail and checking the “recipient will pay shipping” box is not cool!
- It doesn’t count as fan fiction if you just take a copyrighted work and insert Stephen as a character. I’m looking at you, Pete G., author of Harry Potter and Stephen Colbert and the Half-Blood Prince.
- Finally – and I didn’t think this would be a problem, but it is definitely a problem – PLEASE keep your fanfics R-rated or less! We’ve been getting some stuff that… I just… well, I’d never heard of some of this stuff before. And then I made the mistake of looking it up on the Internet. Please, just… just stop.
That’s it! Actually, one more thing. It turns out that a lot of people are submitting fanfics with similar storylines – great minds think alike! However, we’ve received more than enough submissions on the following topics:
Stephen saves the world
Stephen the astronaut
Stephen is a superhero
Stephen becomes President
Stephen hangs with Jesus
Stephen abducted by aliens
Stephen and Jon Stewart are buddy cops
Stephen in the Wild West
Stephen wins aliens over to our side
Stephen the race car driver, with special appearance by Paul Dinello
Stephen presides over futuristic alien techno-paradise
Stephen on BroadwayOK, those are the rules – keep emailing me those submissions (webmaster@colbertnation.com!)
***
Get crackin! Come November 1st, you won’t have the time for such shenanigans, thanks to NaNoWriMo.
D.
Review of City Slab 2(3)
My review of City Slab Volume 2, Issue 3 is posted at Tangent Online. Check it out.
D.
The New Good Bad Sex Contest
Props to Gabriele for pointing me to this Guardian Unlimited article on the Bad Sex Award. Pub date may have been December, 2004, but it was news to me.
(Folks who want to cut to the chase (foreplay haters!) scroll down to The Contest in big, bold letters below.)
Here’s a snip from the first place award winner, Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons:
Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns – oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest – no, the hand was cupping her entire right – Now! She must say “No, Hoyt” and talk to him like a dog. . .
You can read the rest of it (and more!) at the Guardian Unlimited link. For now, I have one comment before I get to the contest.
Otorhinolarynological?
Us ear, nose, and throat doctors don’t even use that word. Even its simpler form, otolaryngologist, is anathema. No one can pronounce it. I had to go through five years of residency to learn to pronounce it. It’s true!
Here’s the deal. We used to be ear, nose, and throat doctors. Then the general surgeons started calling us booger-pickers and snot docs, and we decided a la Rodney Dangerfield that we don’t get no respect, no respect at all. Some wag got out his Greek dictionary and figured out,
oto = ear
rhino = nose
laryng = throat
and we became otorhinolaryngologists.
Instant disaster. The Yellow Pages started charging us for the extra letters. ENTs began committing seppuku because, in addition to “Hey, can you see through to the other side?”* and “Huh?”** we now had to hear “How do you pronounce that?” TWENTY TIMES A DAY.
It didn’t help when we became otolaryngologists. If anything, life became worse. The word was slightly smaller than otorhinolaryngologist, having lost the rhino, and some folks thought perhaps they could pronounce it now. They couldn’t.
Some European dude thought ORL would be better. Catchy, easy to pronounce. Everyone loves acronyms. But then some American dude said, “Hey, wait a second. We do a lot more than ears, nose, and throat. We do cancer surgery, too! We’re head and neck surgeons. We’re ORL-HNS!”
Someone, probably a small town private practice doc like me, had the bright idea of going back to ENT, and we lived happily ever after.
So, what’s up with Tom Wolfe’s use of ‘otorhinolaryngological’? I think Mr. Wolfe is trying to say that sex is an ungainly, awkward, breathless experience, rather like saying otorhinolaryngological. And if we say pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism, we may even need to change our underwear.
Anyway, let’s talk about sex. Let’s do better than talk about it; let’s have a contest! Yes, I’m shamelessly copycatting. The Smart Bitches held one not long ago. Demented Michelle has a cool Halloween contest at her place. Mine, naturally, will be about Le Bad Sex.
A. You don’t even have to write a complete scene. Give me a sentence. A sentence fragment. Like that one. Or this one. Just make it reek to high heaven, okay? It’s like the Bad Hemingway contest without the machisimo. Or maybe with the machisimo, if that’s what floats your boat.
B. Two hundred words or less. Don’t get carried away or I’ll hurt you.
C. Use this post for entries only. I will post a chat thread below this one for comments and questions.
D. The prize: a $20 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble books, BUT: if you promote this contest on your blog or website, AND if you win, I’ll make it a $30 gift certificate. (When you post your entry, tell me where you have posted your promo.)
E. Entries will be judged by my ten-year-old son Jake.
F. Just kidding! Jeez, that would be a total buzz kill, eh? No, we’ll judge this like we do at the Writers BBS. Email me your votes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. You may not vote for yourself. Scoring will be based on a point system: 1st place is 5 points, 2nd is 3 points, and 3rd is one point.
G. Multiple entries are allowed. In fact, multiple entries are usually necessary to achieve optimal results. *um, sorry, couldn’t help myself*
H. Contest begins: NOW!
I. Contest ends: Midnight, Pacific Standard Time, Tuesday, October 18th.
J. Voting begins: immediately after the contest ends.
K. Voting ends: Midnight, Pacific Standard Time, Thursday, October 20th.
L. You must enter the contest to vote. Sorry, but if any of y’all are as Type A as I am, you’ll probably end up paying winos to go to their local libraries, hop on the computer, and vote for you, just so you’ll win some dumb gift certificate. And besides, I’m trying to encourage entries.
New!!! M. You may enter as many times as you like.
Enjoy!
D.
*The ENT looks into his patient’s ear.
“Hey, doc, can you see through to the other side?”
“Ya know, I could, except there are these two walnuts rolling around that are getting in the way.”
**The ENT says, “So, Mr. Patient, how’s your hearing?”
“Huh?” (Followed forthwith by eager I’ll bet you never heard that one smile.)
Psilicious
The Society by Lilith Saintcrow
It’s tough as walnut shells being tall and well muscled, a rugged Charles Bronson kinda guy, only good-looking, too, a frigid burnt-out sorta handsome like Kurt Russell circa Soldier; yeah, it isn’t easy living with killer instincts strung violin-wire tight, psi powers so potent even your best buds cringe when you look their way because you could squash their brains like overripe grapes as soon as share a beer with them. But enough about me.
Justin Delgado is like that, too. Justin and me, we go way back. In kindergarten, we used to pit our mental powers against each other while the other pishers were racing Hot Wheels. Justin would make a June bug explode, then I’d send a few dozen bees screaming down on Mrs. Ehrenreich’s purple hair. We were bad kids.
High school happened. Justin had a thing for icy blondes, while I had a thing for any girl who had a thing for me. He claimed he didn’t use his power to score the babes, but I know better. Back then, you had to be all sensitive to get a prom date, but sensitivity wasn’t Justin’s strong suit. You can’t tell me Justin didn’t do a little pushing.
After high school, Justin seemed to disappear. I’d have never found out what happened to him if it hadn’t been for Lilith Saintcrow’s book, The Society. Justin got picked up by Sigma — that’s our benevolent government’s psi black-ops unit. They hooked him on Zed and turned him into a killer. I told him he shoulda come with me to Vegas.
The Society, they’re the good guys. They ‘extracted’ Justin, kept him safe while he kicked his Zed jones. Eventually, he became their ichiban, their top dude, their Neo. If you got a psi-gifted novice at risk of a Sigma pickup, Justin’s your man. And he would’ve gone on being their primo bitchenest operative if it hadn’t been for Rowan Price.
Rowan, she has it all. Psi powers right off the charts, makes all the little red bulbs go pop! She’s a leggy blonde and she touches Justin in ways he desperately needs. The healing touch — but, yeah, there’s a bit o’ the nasty there, too. Justin snapped her up right under Sigma’s nose, but the extraction was messy. Now she’s damaged goods, an emotional train wreck, a kid with way too many ghosts — exactly like Justin.
Can Justin be an effective Sigma-killing machine with nothing but Rowan on his mind? Cuz damn, he’s hooked on her worse than Zed. Will Justin and Rowan heal each other? Will they commingle their psyches as well as their bodily fluids?
Maybe, maybe not. Never mind true love’s irresistible attraction; with Sigma hot on their trail and suspicious goings-on in the heart of the Society, it would be a miracle if they managed to stay alive.
Am I playing coy? Sure I am. I know what happens to these two lovebirds. I read the book. And you should, too, if you want to know how Justin and Rowan make out. I ain’t spoilin’ it for you.
D.
NYTBR Odds and Ends
I’ve never been a big fan of Robert Heinlein (I think I hit the limit with Stranger in a Strange Land), but it’s nearly impossible to read SF without becoming aware of Heinlein’s influence. He’s a controversial figure. Over the years, folks have accused him of being sexist, racist, fascist, you name it.
In this week’s New York Times Book Review back page essay, author M.G. Lord argues that Heinlein’s earlier work qualifies him as a feminist (Heinlein’s Female Troubles, NYTBR 10/2/05). It’s an interesting (and well written) essay, and I encourage you folks to take a look at it, even if you are not SF fans.
Elsewhere in the NYTBR: Eric Weinberger reviews George Saunders’ The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil without ever using the words science and fiction in close proximity of one another. The plot is plainly SF (um . . . all the action takes place on another planet, and concerns a variety of weird aliens), so what’s up? Weinberger chooses to call it satire.
I don’t know if I have a problem with this.
I asked Karen yesterday, “When are you going to blog again?” Since we’re an old married couple, she heard me when I telepathically added, “You know, you’ll never build your readership if you only blog once a week.”
“I’m not blogging to get more readers,” she said. “I do it to help organize my thoughts.”
I suppose that’s what I’m doing right now — trying to figure out how I feel about this. As SF writers, should we cheer when one of our own gets reviewed in the NYTBR, even if the SF-word isn’t used? Should we give Margaret Atwood a big stage wink when she slams science fiction?
Okay, Romance lovers: do you have a Margaret Atwood in your ranks, i.e., an author who aspires towards the literary and shuns the Romance label, even though that’s exactly what she is writing? How do you feel about her? (Or him. As Stephen has taught me, there’s a few blokes out there.)
Here’s what I think. Although some science fiction novels are written purely for escapism, many authors are writing social commentary. Hell, a good novel can do both. Just because the author has something to say — as Atwood did in The Handmaid’s Tale — the novel should not automatically pass Go, collect $200, and rate as satire (don’t nobody say SF).
If “genre” has any utility at all, it’s to help the reader know what to expect. To me, “serious literary fiction” is, as I mentioned to Pat recently, “boring pointless stories about characters with boring pointless lives who, in their inevitable epiphanies, find meaning in said lives.” The last thing I want is for a bunch of truly excellent SF writers to worm their way into the ranks of those literary doofuses. Because, you know something? If they do, I’m not reading them any more.
Thank heavens Jonathan Lethem’s Gun, with Occasional Music was filed in SF. That’s all I’m saying.
D.