We would gladly have have listened to her (they said) if only she had spoken like a lady. But they are liars and the truth is not in them.

Shrill… vituperative… no concern for the future of society… maunderings of antiquated feminism… selfish femlib… needs a good lay… this shapeless book… of course a calm and objective discussion is beyond… twisted, neurotic… some truth buried in a largely hysterical… of very limited interest, I should… another tract for the trash-can… burned her bra and thought that… no characterization, no plot… really important issues are neglected, while … hermetically sealed … women’s limited experience …another of the screaming sisterhood… a not very appealing aggressiveness… could have been done with wit if the author had… deflowering the pretentious male… a man would have given his right arm to… hardly girlish… a woman’s book…. another shrill polemic which the … a mere male like myself can hardly … a brilliant but basically confused study of feminine hysteria which … feminine lack of objectivity … this pretense at a novel… trying to shock… the tired tricks of the anti-novelists … how often must a poor critic have to … the usual boring obligatory references to lesbianism… denial of the profound sexual polarity which… an all too womanly refusal to face facts … pseudo-masculine brusqueness… the ladies’ magazine level… trivial topics like housework and the predictable screams of … those who cuddled up to ball-breaker Kate will… unfortunately sexless in its outlook … drivel… a warped clinical protest against …violently waspish attack … formidable self-pity which erodes any chance of … formless… the inability to accept the female role which … the predictable fury at anatomy displaced to … without the grace and compassion which we have the right to expect … anatomy is destiny … destiny is anatomy … sharp and funny but without real weight or anything beyond topical … just plain bad …. we “dear ladies”, whom Russ would do away with unfortunately just don’t feel … ephemeral trash, missiles of the sex war … a female lack of experience which …

Q.E.D. Quod erat demonstrandum. It has been proved.

– The Female Man, Joanna Russ

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife… wait, that’s the wrong story. It is a truth definitely universally acknowledged that an author needs good reference books (or other sources). The author does not want to get things wrong, after all.

(Well, unless she’s writing an alternate universe where Things Happened Differently, but let’s shuffle that under the nearest doormat for the moment.)

And yet I have books on my shelf containing passages like the following:

The animal used most frequently in the arena was the legendary Libyan lion: the most magnificent specimens of this mutant species grew to eleven feet in length, with enormous paws armed with razorsharp claws of sabre-size dimensions; even their engorged testicles were as large as a man’s head. The Libyan lion was the ultimate killing machine, especially if deprived of its usual diet: in the wild, on the then-fertile terrain of the Ideban Marzuq, it could lay waste to two hundred wildebeests and ostriches in one sitting. Armies of slaves were expended in the capture of these majestic beasts – they were impervious to tranquillizer arrows […] The captured lions could be pacified by feeding them with almost-infinite quantities of Armenian brandy, the addictive qualities of which put them into near-comatose trances of gurgling tranquility and rendered them amenable to their long journey over the Mediterranean. But as soon as they reached the port of Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber river, their intake of brandy would be abruptly ended, sending them into a state of ever-greater rampant fury which reached its pinnacle at the moment of their entrance into the arena.

– Caligula: Divine Carnage, by Stephen Barber & Jeremy Reed

Now I entirely agree that there may be some slight doubt about the historical, and even biological, accuracy of this excerpt. I just quote it to support the point that just because a reference book is bad (bad to the bone, even) that doesn’t mean it can’t give the writer helpful ideas. As long as she realises that it’s inaccurate, it’s entirely up to her what she does with it.

I can only say that if my protagonists at some point run into an eleven-foot-long alcoholic lion, clearly they need to give it some Armenian brandy while dodging those tranquillizer arrows. I’m sure it’ll spice up their voyage across the Mediterranean.

I have just discovered both the Takarazuka Revue (the Japanese theatrical troupe) and Elisabeth (the German musical). And the best of both together, the Elisabeth production by the Moon troupe of Takarazuka in 2009.

Hopefully the first flush of enthusiasm will abate a little soon, and I won’t be so prone to wandering round humming my favourite numbers or trying to work out where der Tod can make a casual appearance in anything I’m writing. You know how it goes.

A truly beautiful post here at Making Light today:

In coming up with a creed, the biggest question was “What is the Nature of Christ?” One side, led by the pious and scholarly Arius, held that Jesus was the first and greatest of God’s creations (that is, essentially, Top Angel). The other side, championed by Athanasius, held that Jesus was actually Totally God Since Forever. Both sides had copies of old fanzines to support their position.

(When Constantine heard this he said, “Can’t you guys just get along? Why not agree to disagree like every other friggin’ philosopher since Plato was a pup, and get on with your lives?” to which both sides answered “No!!!!eleventy!!!” and thus Nicea.)

At the time Athanasius was best known for his blog, Athanasius Contra Mundum. (The top of every page was marked with a flashing icon labeled “Breaking!” while the bottom of each page said, “Must credit Athanasius!”)

Did you ever hear of Giovanni Battista Piranesi?

He was born in Venice, and lived from 1720 to 1778. He was an artist famous for his etchings and engravings of Rome. He measured a large number of the ancient monuments. He supervised the restoration of a church, published ingenious and bizarre designs for chimney-pieces and original furniture, and after his death his son published a collection of his plates, which came out at twenty-nine folio volumes containing about 2000 prints. (Thank you, wikipedia.)

But the interesting thing, from my current point of view, is his Prisons.

Piranesi’s Prisons (Carceri d’invenzione or ‘Imaginary Prisons’), is a series of 16 prints that show enormous subterranean vaults with stairs and mighty machines. They’re validly described as Kafkaesque or Escher-like. The pictures are the sort of thing that would be filmed by a crossover effort between Peter Jackson and Clive Barker. They show huge dark ruined arches, stairs, machineries, cells.

Piranesi started the series in 1745, when he was in Venice (from 1743 to 1747 – after that, he was in Rome). The first state prints were published in 1750 and consisted of 14 etchings, untitled and unnumbered, with a sketch-like look. The original prints were 16” x 21”. For the second publishing in 1761, all the etchings were reworked and numbered I–XVI (1–16).

Here’s a complete set, on a Russian site: http://gravures.ru/photo/dzhovanni_piranezi/tjurmy/10

And here’s a set of the first state 14 etchings: http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Renaissance/Facsimiles/PiranesiCarceri1750/

This is Plate VII: The Drawbridge:

Plate VII: The Drawbridge

I’m writing about a dreamlike dark Venice. These really should come into it.

When running a roleplaying game with a group of players, they will often want their characters to specialise in different areas. It’s a bit like a caper movie – you have the one who’s in charge, the one who’s the tech specialist, the one who does the fast-talking con job, the one who handles the physical stuff or who’s a gun expert, etcetera. (A classic form of this would be the A-Team: planner, face man, vehicle driver, physical/tech expert.) In this case, it’s the GM’s job to make sure that all the characters have a chance to show off their skills and get a few neat moments in the limelight. (Well, the GM can’t always make sure that it happens, but she can at least try to make sure that there will be opportunities for doing so in the story/game.)

If one character chooses to declare that she’s a linguist and a specialist in translation, then the GM will no doubt give her a few moments in the limelight where she has to talk to someone whose language nobody else in the group speaks, or translate a vitally important document, or whatever. Which is fair and good. However, the GM can’t make every point in the game hang off her linguistic skills. It would be unfair to all the other players. It would also be unrealistic to force every scenario/campaign to have a vital linguistic component – well, possibly if you’re playing Call of Cthulhu or Bookhounds of London, but otherwise it can feel a bit forced.

The nice thing about being an author rather than a GM is that you don’t have to comply with such a principle.

(rubs hands together)

I was watching original series Star Trek earlier this evening (the Horror Channel is showing reruns – don’t ask me why they consider Star Trek to be appropriate to the Horror Channel, I have no idea, I simply take what I can get). It was the episode The Devil In The Dark. For those not quite as enthusiastic as I am, that’s the episode with the Horta (not Horla – that’s a different story, and an entirely different crossover if they ever wrote it), the rock-creature who is apparently committing wholesale murder on a mining planet, but who is only trying to drive the miners away because they’re smashing her eggs. As the story progresses, Kirk and Spock establish communication with the creature, find out that she is a mother and that her eggs are at risk and that she is intelligent, and end the story by convincing the mob-minded miners of this, and establishing a relationship of mutual toleration, where the miners don’t smash any more eggs and stay out of the Horta’s way, and she and her offspring dig tunnels which the miners can then use for their mining.

Quite a standard episode, you might say.

I’m just trying to think of the last time I saw a plot along those lines in more recent science fiction.

I suppose part of the problem is that these days, it is assumed that your nice kind good Federation-type exploring spaceships are going to have automatic guidelines/protocols along the lines of “assume other forms of life can exist”, “don’t wipe out the native race”, “check to see if there is a native race before you send in the miners”, “examine the mysterious egglike nodules that are turning up all over the place”, and so on. Plus, Star Trek did the story first. All reasons not to see the story elsewhere, or for it to have a lot more camouflage/additional material if it does show up.

Or perhaps we’re just all too cynical these days.

All right, I am now slightly over the first manic rush of “I got my book/s accepted!” and the first manic fear of “how can I possibly live up to what people are expecting from me?” and can get back down to work.

A lot of work.

Write write write.

Where’s a Watson when you need one?

And this is the news.

http://torbooks.co.uk/2013/06/06/tor-acquires-new-series-think-doctor-who-with-librarian-spies/#more-9960

Pan Macmillan’s Tor imprint is delighted to report  the acquisition of The Invisible Library by debut UK novelist Genevieve Cogman. Senior Commissioning editor Bella Pagan bought World rights in this novel and two others by Cogman from Lucienne Diver at The Knight Agency. These were acquired in an enthusiastic pre-empt.

The concept behind these hugely entertaining books has inspired comparisons such as ‘Doctor Who with librarian spies’. The redoubtable Irene is a secret agent for the ultimate inter-dimensional library, a covert organization that gathers knowledge from parallel worlds. Irene’s latest assignment posts her, and her enigmatic assistant, to an alternative Victorian London. Their goal being to retrieve an extremely dangerous book. But  when she arrives, it’s already been stolen – and soon she’s up to her eyebrows in thieves, murderers and secret societies – with a dash of the supernatural in store.   

I still can’t believe it. But yes. Winter Irene is coming!

I really shouldn’t buy that whisky sea salt fudge from that shop in town. I go through a single bag in a couple of days and then wonder why I’m feeling as if I’ve been overeating.

I’ve been tidying my bedroom/study. A number of large piles of RPG supplements and beading/patchwork magazines are now carefully organised stacks of RPG supplements and beading/patchwork magazines. So much better.

Now that I’ve got a bit further with “making up a bag using cotton scraps via foundation piecing”, I need to move on to trying the next step, which is “making up a bag using silk scraps via foundation piecing”. On the negative side, this will produce a much more fragile bag. On the positive side, some people may want a more-fragile-but-made-of-silks bag. It’s hard to satisfy a taste when you don’t really share it. I know I’d always go for the more solid bag.