Death Speaks...

This is W. Somerset Maugham's retelling of a very old Arabic story I found the other day, which he wrote in 1933, and I thought might be of some interest to at least some of you...

Death speaks: There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went.

Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra...


PS: I will have some proper content soon, I promise. My long hiatus is coming to an end, and I'll be cranking things back up again. I was a bit disenchanted with the whole process, so there will be a few changes - but I'll be back :)

RIP: David Eddings

Wow. Blimey. Sad news today that David Eddings, aged 77, died yesterday evening.

The Belgariad series was one of my favourites when I first discovered fantasy, and I still remember creeping down the stairs into the dingy basement of a used bookshop in my town, and encountering the first book, Pawn of Prophecy, flicking through it, and just reading for hours. This was at a time when my father felt I was doing altogether too much reading and altogether not enough schoolwork, socialising or hard, physical graft down t' pit, and so had banned me from buying any more books.

I might as well have been banned from breathing. Pawn of Prophecy, in hindsight, was probably not that edgy or outré a book with which to break his ban, but it was jolly good fun. I think that pretty much characterises a lot of David's work. In recent years, his work hasn't had quite the reception it used to, but he still has many fans.

Goodbye, David Eddings. This mortal coil we must all off-shuffle, but few have touched so many lives with their writings as David did those who discovered fantasy in their 'teens.

Swearing in Fantasy (again): Any Thoughts?

I just received this comment on my review of The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari, which was reviewed way back in October 2007:

This was just awful. Nothing origin in here just cuss words which completely destroys the etheral, mythological setting and tone the author is trying to go for. Every 'fuck' that is said just pulled me out of any fantasy setting that was attempted. Imagine if a 'Fuck' was thrown out in the middle of Star Wars or Rings? It has no place in a fantasy story. Yes I know its 'adult themed' but its just using swears for pointless shock value.

I would avoid this book like leposy.

I, too, would avoid leposy. It sounds awful. However, stingy as I might be with my review quotes at the moment, I will say this: The Book of Joby is better than leprosy. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it's way better. It's a long time since I last read it, but I can't remember that many swear words in the book, which I liked and would recommend. But even so...

What is it with swearing? In the middle of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings I can understand, perhaps. But no swearing in any fantasy novels? Should ethereal, mythological settings be kept free of (really rather old) four-letter words and other variants?

Should the aesthetic side of writing fantasy, keeping it clean and pure and beautiful, win out over realism? Is there a difference between swearing in a book and swearing in a movie? Just a few thoughts that have been swirling in my head since that last comment, and I'd appreciate any thoughts you people have on the subject :)

Let the (friendly) argument begin!

Win A Copy of "The Siege of Krishnapur"!

Win a copy of what? I, at least, had never heard of The Siege of Krishnapur until I bought a wonderful pack containing the six Booker prize-winning novels that had been nominated for the Best of the Bookers award. That pack also contains Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, the much fêted magic-realist post-Indian-partition novel, which is soon to be made into a movie.


The Siege of Krishnapur tells the story of the Indian Mutiny of the late 1850s against British colonial rule through the eyes of the British people stationed there. Some of the other books I've read in the pack have been good, but a little ... highbrow ... at times, where I wondered whether I was reading it for fun, or just to say I'm reading a Booker prize novel, Isn't this grand. That's not the case with this one. As the quote on the blurb says, "For a novel to be witty is one thing, to tell a good story is another, to be serious is yet another, but to be all three is surely enough to make it a masterpiece." Review soon.

To enter:

• Send an email to: thebookswede@googlemail.com, containing the subject (aka header) "SIEGE"

• No multiple entries -- or I will personally selotape bacon to you :) Whether you like it (and I hope you don't) or not...
  

• Open Anywhere (on Earth...)

• Please also include any Message Boards you frequent, if any

• Make sure your email contains your full mailing address (snail mail!). Please.
  

• Contest closes on the 31st March -- if you enter four months late, as some have, I won't send your entries back in time! ;)
  

RIP: Philip José Farmer

Darn.

The Official Philip José Farmer Home Page is reporting that Philip José Farmer passed away today at age 91. He's probably best known for the Riverworld and World of Tiers series. He wrote some pretty weird stuff, but I liked a lot of it, World of Tiers particularly. Also, if you ever see a book called The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, pick it up! It is good. It'll probably be battered and old; Farmer has been around a while, and a lot of the remaining copies are very obviously from a different age of science-fiction.

Fare thee well. It's not much consolation to his friends and family, I'm sure, but 91 is a very good age, and he did much. He was truly Brobdingnagian. He liked that word, and so do I.

Stranger Than Fiction: The Cat-Boy

Not-a-post, but a desperate filler, while the month of February evaporates quickly. I should, if this world were kind, be eating pancakes tonight... For those of you in places other than the UK who previously thought our standards of journalism were pretty good, I present you with The Sun... All capitals used are theirs.

A CAT-BOY has stunned medics with his ability to SEE in pitch black with eyes that GLOW in the dark.

Doctors have studied Nong Youhui’s amazing eyesight since his dad took him to hospital in Dahua, southern China, concerned over his bright blue eyes.

Dad Ling said: "They told me he would grow out of it and that his eyes would stop glowing and turn black like most Chinese people but they never did."

Medical tests conducted in complete darkness show Youhui can read perfectly without any light and sees as clearly as most people do during the day. Experts believe he was born with a rare condition called leukodermia which has left his eyes with less protective pigment and more sensitive to light.

I think many of us book-lovers would find it fantastic to be able to see in the dark :) Proper posts coming. Promise.

Being Human

Being Human is a science-fictional comedy/drama/horror currently being shown on BBC3 (one of the non-terrestial, but still popular, channels) at 9pm on Sunday in the UK. I like it a lot. The episodes are 1 hour long, which I occasionally think might be a bit long for what happens in the show, but it's quickly become my favourite hour of television every week.



It's about three people living in a house together in Bristol. One, Mitchell, is a vampire, but he's "on the wagon" -- not drinking blood. He was bitten in the First World War. George is a werewolf who has to live with his monthly transformation and the fact that as the month wears on, he gets more wolfish in character -- going from a normally gentle, socially shy person to ... well ... not. Annie is a ghost, trying to find out why she's still here.

Hmm. It is much better than it sounds. Some episodes are darker than others, and some are funnier. Generally, though, they're quick-moving and good fun. Although Mitchell is "vegetarian" there is a hint of something going down -- the sinister Herrick, a police chief who happens to be a vampire leader, is trying to recruit him for an impending war...

George, the socially awkward one, is in a relationship -- how to break it that he's supernatural? He met her at the hospital where Mitchell and he both work. Much cause for laughter there. Annie, it seems, has some unfinished business with her fiancée and she's turning a bit poltergeist...

I'd really recommend taking a look at the show, if you can. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned up in the US somehow.

Snow! In Which I Am Not Amused...

UPDATE 6/02/2009: We've had about 5" of snow overnight in my little normally-bad-weather-free area of England, and the Army has been called in as people are abandoning their vehicles on many of the roads. It's virtually impossible to get in or out of my village. The main road from my tiny village to civilisation had been closed anyway for repairs -- meaning we were having to go down tiny backroads and country lanes, which is now impossible. Oh, and they've run out of salt, too. It's a friends' birthday tomorrow, and I really want to go... Phew. Whine over! I'm now going to take advantage of the fact that I've been stuck indoors for five days to start writing reviews of those books I've read :) END UPDATE

I'm fed up of the bloody snow.

It was nice when it started, at first; little moist stars falling from a bright sky, like postcards from a lost childhood, but it very quickly started to get on my nerves. The fact that I have only just got home, after two days of being stranded miles away, in a friends' house, is one thing, but now that I'm home I do have things to do and places to go, y'know.

So I'm asking you, Snow Lord, please stop showing off thy mighty power. Or, at least, show it off somewhere other than the South West of England where, to quote a man on the bus speaking to his daughter at a volume that made the empty chair beside me bleed, "it's been snowing like a bitch". There's more snow tomorrow, so I have a feeling that, having now arrived home, I'm also stuck here. Thanks, Snow Lord.

Incidentally, I was the only person on my bus home (apart from the driver, perforce) and did not appreciate the speed (somewhere in excess of a million miles per hour) that the bus launched itself around iced-up roundabouts. Nor the fact the he stopped the bus about two miles from my stop, because, what with my village being very steep and very seaside, he didn't want to launch the bus over a cliff and into the ocean. I mean, how silly. I did make a snowman, though, and have a generally good time; I'm not entirely falling prey to premature curmudgeonry.

No. More. Snow. Please.

PS: "Bloody" and "bitch" are perfectly fine non-swear swearwords in the UK, lest anybody should think I am actually ferociously angry.

Jane Austen Zombies!!

I think Tia might find this interesting ;) A US publisher is releasing a new bone-crunching comedy version of Pride and Prejudice in which Elizabeth must face off the dubious social manners of the ravenous undead...

From the Guardian article:

Oh, Mr Darcy, you're looking tasty ... is that shirt wet?

I'm trying to imagine the conversation. "Hey guys, you know that old English chick, Jane Austen, who Anne Hathaway played the other year? Didn't she, like, write a book where a handsome dude gets his shirt wet? I've heard it's pretty good, but I know what would make it even better – zombies."

Sometimes I despair, I really do. In a move which makes the very worst of fusion cuisine look tame, an American publisher has decided to combine the latest publishing craze – zombies – with one of the most enduring books ever written. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies "features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action". In an "insanely funny … comedy of manners", Elizabeth "wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead", while dealing with the distractions of "the haughty and arrogant" Mr Darcy.

Okay, I know it's a joke. I haven't read it (it's not out until April), it could be genius - you never know - and I do like the juxtaposition of "Jane Austen is the author of Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and other masterpieces of English literature", and "Seth Grahame-Smith is the author of How to Survive a Horror Movie and The Big Book of Porn". But really. How low can you go?

And that cover is going to give me nightmares.

Tip of the blood-covered axe/other zombie-killing implement to John Lawson. If you see any other article which you find funny or interesting, and think should be featured on this site, please pop me an email. In other news...

The Book Swede was listed as #32 on the Top 100 Science Fiction Blogs, which is nice, by Distance Learning.net. I'm not entirely sure I belong on there, but it is nice, anyway :)

Puss-In-Boots

Puss-In-Boots
Angela Carter
Vintage Books

from the collection The Bloody Chamber

I'm afraid this is a rather lame post, considering the time it has been since my last (much longer!) review. I chose, for some reason, to get stuck into the biggest non-fiction book in the world -- an enormous 1200 page account of the Third Reich, and haven't yet emerged properly. I did have time to read a short story, though, and watch President Obama deliver a fantastic speech. The story I read was by Angela Carter, who is sort of famous, and is now sadly dead. It is, I think, now my favourite short story in all the world.

It is one of 10 stories in her collection, The Bloody Chamber -- that story being more a novelette than a short story. It is a collection that reimagines certain fairy tales and legends -- Beauty and the Beast, werewolf stories and vampire stories, as well as an extremely dark, Bluebeard retelling. Most of the stories are very dark, in fact. Puss-In-Boots is not, and is completely different in language and style. Puss, an accomplished raconteur and user of innuendo, narrates the tale of his master, who falls in love with a beautiful woman who is kept locked up at home by her greedy husband, in a blend of Anglo-Saxon coarseness and Latinate elaboration:

So all went right as ninepence and you never saw such boon companions as Puss and his master; until the man must needs fall in love.


"Head over heels, Puss."


I went about my ablutions, tonguing my arsehole with the impeccable hygienic integrity of cats, one leg stuck in the air like a ham bone; I choose to remain silent. Love? What has my rakish master, for whom I've jumped through the window of every brothel in the city, besides haunting the virginal back garden of the convent and god knows what other goatish errands, to do with the tender passion?

There are, of course, this story being narrated by a cat, moments of philosophy, too:

Performing, as ever after meals, my meditative toilette, I pondered, thus: one, he is in a fair way to ruining us both by neglecting his business; two, love is desire sustained by unfulfilment.

Despite the cynical tone, the story is very funny and quite heart-warming towards the end, too. It's one of those things you can't help but read out loud, enjoying the texture of Carter's strangely juxtaposed words on the lips. A Spanish accent is necessary, since "all cats have a Spanish tinge although Puss himself elegantly lubricates his virile, muscular, native Bergamasque with French, since that is the only language in which you can purr." Even if you only get the collection for this story, and aren't normally interested in retellings of fairy tales, it would be utterly worth it.

For more information:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

(For the Amazon UK link, I have linked to a special offer Vintage Books are doing, where you can buy this collection, and The Complete Grimm Fairy Tales, for £4.99)

--Previous review--

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell
Penguin Classics

1948
355 pages

I'm sure this book needs no introduction to some people. It is the classic depiction of a totalitarian dystopian future -- one planned, rather than accidental -- and it has proved so powerful and enduring because it is so very, very plausible. Some of the things predicted in Nineteen Eight-Four have indeed come to pass, while it has also given us things like Room 101 and Big Brother, etc. I ask you not to hold that last against Orwell -- gormless goons locked in a house, being watched by other ... ahem ... was not quite what he imagined.

The eighties were quite different in most regards to what Orwell imagined, perhaps even partly because of what he wrote, but that doesn't really matter in the end. The date isn't that important. Unlike some science-fiction written in the late 40s and 50s it is utterly in account with modern times. None of the technology is farcical or out of date, or unimaginable, or even wildly before it's time -- so often in utopian, almost eudæmonist, visions of the future written in those times, by about the 1990s humanity has conquered all plagues and illness and lives in shining castles in the air, with happy animals and people frolicking and lolloping around -- this is not the case in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The technology, simple things like bugs and telescreens which watch you in your house all the time, is not nearly as powerful as the atmosphere of mistrust and fear which has been inculcated, particularly in the minds of the young -- so that, as in Hitlerian Germany, and other régimes, parents have more to fear from their children, forced into Nazi Youth type meetings, etc., than they do from any watchful eye of the state. But enough of that...

Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in what was once the British Isles, now called Airstrip One and a province of Oceania, and tells the story of Winston Smith, a worker in the Record Department of the Ministry of Truth. Government departments often seem to be named opposite to their function (except, of course, in Dickens' Little Dorrit, where the Circumlocution Office is very aptly named) and this time is no exception. It is Winston's job to rewrite the past so that it fits in with current Party propaganda -- and once the past is changed, everybody is meant to forget that the current version of history is nowhere near what happened... And they do. They have no other records to consult to discover that, for example, Oceania has been at war with Eastasia for only a short while, rather than the forever the Party has told them -- and their own memories are not to be trusted.

It was much more fun to read than I expected. One of the messages of the book, if it can be said to have messages, is that language is power, and that if you control the language used by the people, you control the thoughts of the people -- political gobbledygook, in Orwell's opinion, only serves to oppress and hinder, rather than help. As a result, Nineteen Eighty-Four is written in very clear, simple prose, eschewing unnecessary obfuscation, as it were, and I would definitely recommend it.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows.

Further information:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

--Previous review--

The Book Swede in a Song!

So. A couple of weeks ago, John at Grasping for the Wind, who hosts and organises many of the discussions and cool things that go on between the bloggers, had an idea for a meme which has proved very popular and has so far collected almost 200 science-fiction and fantasy blogs, old and new. Now, I was woefully inattentive at the time, and didn't repost the meme here, but The Book Swede was lucky enough to have been included anyway...

And now it's in a song. John Anealio at Sci-Fi Songs has done it, and it's very good, and surprisingly catchy and fun. This is why he did it:

"Grasping for the Wind (The Linkup Meme Song)" is a tribute to all of the blogs that I read and to the wonderful people who I have had the pleasure of connecting with since I started Sci-Fi Songs.

And this is the song:


Grasping for the Wind (The Linkup Meme Song) by John Anealio

Bookspotcentral and the Bibliosnark
SF Signal and the Accidental Bard
The Crotchety Old Fan and Blood of the Muse
OF Blog of the Fallen and Fantasy Debut

Andromeda Spaceways and the Deckled Edge
The Fantasy Cafe and AurealisXpress
The Antick Musings of the Hornswaggler Gent.
A Dribble of Ink and the Galaxy Express

Chorus
I'm Grasping for the Wind
with this Linkup Meme
I don't know where to begin
with these RSS feeds

Speculative Fiction Junkie, Hyperpat's Hyper Day
Cheaper Ironies and Neth Space
Dragons, Heroes, and Wizards and The Wertzone
the Sudden Curve and The Agony Column

Robots and Vamps and the Sci-Fi Guy
Urban Fantasy Land and io9
Adventures in Reading and Galleycat
Cheryl's Musings and The Sequential Rat

Chorus

Dark Wolf Reviews and Darque Reviews
Fantasy Book Reviews and News
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review,
The Spiral Galaxy Reviews
The Highlander's Book Review
Sandstorm Reviews and The Sword Review

Chorus

Enter the Octopus and Walker of Worlds
Rob's Blog of Stuff, The Discriminating Fangirl
Bibliophile Stalker and the SciFi Chick
Hasenpfeffer and the Fantasy Book Critic

Pat's Fantasy Hotlist and Critical Mass
Jumpdrives and Cantrips, The World in a Satin Bag
Fruitless Recursion and the Book Swede!!!!!!!
Bookcrastination and Reading the Leaves

Chorus

Dave Brendon's Fantasy and Sci-Fi Weblog
Feminist SF the Blog!
Fantasy and Sci-Fi Lovin' Blog
and the Fantastic Reviews Blog

Sci-Fi Fan Letter and 7 foot shelves
Author 2 Author, Billion Light-Year Bookshelf
SF Gospel and the Bookgeeks
Danger Gal and NextRead

Chorus

Now this may look just like a list a list of names, but such is John's talent that it's actually lyrical, sing-along-able to, and very, very cheery. I urge you to listen to it. You can download the song in mp3 format. And you must visit Sci-Fi Songs. I haven't been too great in my linking to things, and general doing things, or commenting on my fellow bloggers' blogs, or mentioning the new blogs that are emerging, but, well, listen to this song, read the meme, and have fun :)

2009!

A happy New Year to you all! Out with the old, and in with the new, and all that...

2009 is the year in which Barack Obama becomes President of the United States of America; not long after that it becomes illegal to possess "extreme pornography" in the UK, whatever that is; it is the International Year of Astronomy; it is the two hundredth birthday of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln (whichever one was the greater emancipator is a matter of personal opinion); there will be a total solar eclipse, the longest lasting one of the 21st century; the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom will be opened at last; the Large Hadron Collider will be restarted after a few technical bumps last year (and no, the world won't end); and much, much more...

Looking forward to it? And, as if all that important stuff wasn't enough, I'll be bringing you a review of George Orwell's dystopian science-fiction novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four very soon :) I'd be interested to hear what books you got for Christmas (or your local equivalent)...

I spent New Year's Eve being very cold, in temperatures of minus ten degrees centigrade! I forgot to sing Auld Lang Syne, but I did dance a little, though at nothing like a human standard, I'm sad to report. Much cider was quaffed. Much vodka was ... erm? ... slagged. Much fun was had.

Christmas Hiatus

I wish everyone a happy Christmas, Mithrastide, HumanLight day, Hanukkah, or whatever festival you will be celebrating :) I hadn't planned to break from blogging this early for the holidays, but my laptop officially died last week, and thus far, I haven't been able to resurrect it.

I know, since September onwards, I haven't been blogging nearly as much as I was before, and I expect most of you know the reasons for that. Nevertheless, a new year, a new start, and I'll be getting back into the swing of things, and reviewing and interviewing and contest-hosting, which I think will be fun :)

Thanks to everyone who's commented and sent messages of support, and for everyone who still reads this blog.

A huge thanks to the authors this year who have let me fire questions at them:

Richard Morgan
Marie Brennan
Karen Miller
Robert V.S Redick

I had planned to interview more authors this year, and huge apologies to Melissa Snodgrass who I left rather in the lurch. There's always next year :)

To the wonderful publishers I regularly receive from, and pester:

Orbit Books (who get an extra special thanks, as they've been lovely from the very beginning of this blog; in particular, the lovely Sam and Darren)
Tor Books
Gollancz Books
Night Shade Books
Transworld Books

I have books from all these, and ones I don't regularly receive from, that I haven't gotten around to reading, let alone reviewing, this year, and for that I apologise. They all have some marvellous books coming out next year, and, when I'm finished with my backlog, I'll be getting more up-to date!

Thanks, and Merry Christmas!