Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Editing update and a quote source
Lest you think I’ve been a lazy boy: yes, I’ve been working on my big mothah manuscript. My NaNo month left me a bit rusty as regards my novel, so I started over from scratch. I met and passed the 1/8 mark just a moment ago. Yippee!
Thumbnail description of The Brakan Correspondent, for those of you who aren’t intimately familiar with it already:
A respected newspaper journalist’s quest for the truth pits him against imperialistic aliens, his oppressive government, and cannon-wielding semi-intelligent pigs.
Sucks, doesn’t it? I prefer the blurb I gave over at pbw’s site once upon a time:
Animal Farm . . . in space!
Both versions leave out the ninja birds, forty Colonel Kirbys, geeky flies, and lovelorn giant spiders, not to mention the fact that most of my protagonists are birds with arms instead of wings, but I still think that second blurb says it best.
Today, I managed to work in an earlier reference to the Zhelski story. It’s important because much later, my protag’s goverment will “pull a Zhelski” on him and a large group of their political opponents. Zhelski is modeled after Dostoevsky, who was once subjected to a mock execution under the reign of Tsar Nicholas I. In my novel, the mock execution plays out much differently.
Anyway, while working on this, I found an exhaustive web reference tool for quotations. Who needs Bartlett’s when World of Quotes is so easy to use? From their entry on tyranny:
I begin by taking. I shall find scholars later to demonstrate my perfect right.
Author: Euripides
Source: Suppliants (429), (Oxford translation revised by Buckley)
Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Source: found among his papers after his death
It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
Author: Niccolo Machiavelli (Macchiavelli)
Source: The Prince
But thou know’st this, ‘Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: Pericles Prince of Tyre (Pericles at I, ii)
Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
Author: Aesop
Source: None
And my favorite:
The world is made up for the most part of morons and natural tyrants, sure of themselves, strong in their own opinions, never doubting anything.
Author: Clarence Darrow
Source: None
My addition, which has gnome-like magnificence next to these giants:
“Not long ago, we were under Synester Nextush’s talon,†said Haj. “To quote Zhelski, ‘Our democracy stands a feather’s-breadth apart from tyranny.’â€
“That much, eh?†said Eli. “You’re obsessed with Zhelski.â€
Haj puffed out his breast. “Zhelski stood up for our freedoms. He put his neck on the block for all of us.â€
“Nothing more than a self-promoting hack, a scoundrel who cloaked himself –â€
And so on.
D.
Well, on some level we’re all self-promoting hacks…
You’ve got a real knack for dialog, Doug. No doubt about it.
Thanks, Dean ;o)
Today’s word verification: boxtp
As in box of toilet paper, or ‘how many boxtops does it take to buy that secret decoder ring?’