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(Some parts of this site are still under construction, but - hey - it's a fiction based site, so updates will be a little slow in coming!)

11/06/07

Watching "Blink" on Saturday... Nice images, shame about the plot. Couldn't someone have given this premise to someone like Lawrence Miles and turned *him* loose on it? Another good idea flushed down the toilet of modern TV. Ho-hum... And on a less technical but utterly annoying note: honestly - would any girl that pretty look twice at that scruffy geek?? Talk about authorial wish-fulfillment... Shame about the cute copper - that's some rebound!

I've seen it written (and heard it said) that women won't touch the Sci-fi set with a ten-footer, but really, it's not that brains and an interest in something other than kicking a bag of air around are a turn-off (though for me, football a total non-starter right up there with "wasn't The Phantom Menace really good...?"), it's just... Let me put it this way: Guys - it's simple... brains aren't a turn off for girls, neither are "nerdish" tendencies" - provided of course obsessive compulsive behaviour isn't a factor. All things in moderation. But personal hygiene, a haircut that takes account of the length you wish to wear your hair, shaving off anything less than a full viking bushy beard (sad scruffy "Shaggy" level stubble is off-putting. For appropriate use of 3-day-stubble, see Oliver Tobias in his heyday. [Anyone else old enough to remember "Smuggler"??]) and at least some attempt at physical fitness (6 pack optional, but even beer bellies aren't a total turn-off if the rest of the package is looking like a possibility) and preferably capable of holding down a decent job that doesn't involve name tags - Oh - and don't still be living with your mother past the age of 25. Or put it another way for the ADD generation: Hugh Jackman in the otherwise risable "Swordfish". If you can nail *that* as a look, you've got it made...

Family, for one... and mine is as dysfunctional as they get - though after a 15 year hiatus I'm daddy's little girl again... OTOH if you know where my mother's sloped off to - keep the information to yourself. There's only so much emotional abuse one person can put up with in a lifetime. Also nearly died from anaphylactic shock last year during an attack of Erythema Multiforme (go on, look it up... I had a pretty nasty version, cause unknown, that's left me with some odd allergies and a need to carry anti-histimines around for the rest of my life. Nice. Rushed into A&E on a Saturday night with my mouth and throat swelling up. Scariest thing ever.

Still riding - and I will add some pics of my new boy - Willow is a lovely heavyweight grey hunter standing well over 16 hands, and he and I have hit it off perfectly. He's a sweetie, and I'm head over heels! Hopefully later this year I'll be taking on a lovely 15.2 chestnut mare called "Frou" at which point I suspect my free time and disposable income will vanish without a trace!

Still hard at the Japanese - a die hard Leiji Matsumoto fan and also rather fond of Nagai Go's work, oddly enough... Between an ever growing pile of novels and tankobun, and a growing collection of French literature, I've got plenty to keep me occupied. Not so much on the English side - though I do recommend CS Friedman to anyone passing, and for those who like their SF a little of the purple side, try CL Moore! (Harlock fans will find a character in Northwest Smith similar enough to amuse, Leiji Matsumoto fans will get a giggle out of the knowledge that he illustrated the Japanese translations of her Northwest Smith stories just before he began work on Space Pirate Captain Harlock and Queen Emeraldas... the similarities are striking, the artwork doubly so!)

Will "Maskirovka" ever be finished: Yes... it's just a question of when. Bear with me - in addition to time consuming hobbies causing terminal vocabulary bleed, I also got promoted a couple of times, and my job takes a lot out of me these days. However it pays better than writing...!

Don't be strangers! Always glad to hear from the boys from adwc... drop me a line, I'm never far away! Likewise any of the lads from the old Tav crowd or from Stonecutters - if you're around, call sometimes!! Some of you I miss!!

Musings:

I'm a long time (almost 30 years now) fan of what you might call the "artier" end of the SF spectrum... Not a "Science Fiction fan" as such, but more a fan of certain styles, aesthetics and writers. Give me anything by Roger Zelazny, Theodore Sturgeon, Fritz Leiber, CL Moore, AA Attanasio, Cordwainer Smith, Charles de Lint, Tim Powers, Clark Ashton Smith and a handful of others and I'm happy... I've been through the Asimov/Clarke/Heinlein stage as a teen - hit the "Hard SF" and "Fantasy" genres over the years, and read them widely - but they don't have the same hold over me. Though I am a sucker for a rollicking good adventure that makes no pretense at great literature (my Rafael Sabatini collection will testify to that...) and some that do (Dumas, for example... best of the bunch by a long way).

Aside: One acquaitance seems to feel this makes me just another lame-assed geek with no social life who just wants to look intelligent and fails dismally. I take serious exception to being called shallow, unintelligent and unimaginative by someone who thinks "Science Fiction" equates almost solely to TV shows and films... It's called "literature", dingbat. Been around for a while: Gilgamesh... Homer... Beowulf... Chretien de Troyes... Eschenbach... De Bergerac... Shelley (P)... Shelley (M)...

But my interests have always been in the social sciences... History, Language, Comparative Mythology, Psychology... and to a lesser degree the "hard" sciences of Biology, Physics, Chemistry - and the newer sciences that lead one down interesting speculative alleys as to the nature of reality and whether or not this whole mess actually *means* anything.

Any combination of the above pretty much interests me, so speculative fiction exploring such themes will always draw me.

How any of this explains why "Cutey Honey" is one of the most gloriously surreal and yet oddly compelling pieces of twisted, wacked out and utterly BONKERS pieces of anime I've ever seen that is just so damned watchable is beyond me... Answers please on a postcard only.

"Standing Stones" image (c) Mags L. Halliday 2001