The Fractal Hall Journal

Dead Space

Holy crap, is this game terrifying. And that’s just the intro. Sure, the creepy nursery rhyme theme is a little derivative but I think that’s something computer games are actually really good at. You take the really good bits from genre work (films mostly) and you squish it all together (see Halo, amongst many others). It’s not art, but it’s fun. And this game is packed full of blood-squirty dismembering fun.

The only possible hiccup is that like Condemned and Call of Cthulhu before it, it may be too scary to finish.

Why yes, I am a scaredy cat.

Fallout 3

Depending on what mood I’m in, I could well call Oblivion my favourite computer game. It’s certainly the game I’ve spent the most amount of hours on, by a hee-uge margin. I got it years ago, and because of the finding time thing, I still haven’t completed it. So I’m very much in the target market for a post-apocalyptic version.

Not spent loads of time on it yet because I really do want to finish Dead Space, but I should imagine a lot of ‘09 is going to spent on this one. And, hopefully, Elder Scrolls V in ‘10.

The Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire

I’ve been meaning to get this one for a while. The follow up to Deadly Genesis (reviewed here previously), and like the previous story an entertaining yarn. Brubaker’s an excellent writer, and very good at doing a Claremont-style story in the modern Marvel house style. I feel like I’m damning with faint praise, but that’s not the intention. To be honest, it’s nice to read a superhero comic that doesn’t irritate me on any level.

Lovecraft’s Haunt of Horror and Cthulhu Tales

Sorry, that last one got a bit catty.

A couple of Mythos comics were added to the haul this year, and although I haven’t had chance to read them yet I’ve skimmed through. The MAX title is the hardcover of Richard Corben’s straightforward Lovecraft adaptations, and looks gorgeous. The second is the first paperback collection of BOOM! Studio’s ongoing anothology title. BOOM! Haven’t made a single misstep yet with their Cthulhu titles, and I doubt they’re going to start here.

Arkham Asylum 15th Anniversary edition

Really needs a post to itself. In short: brilliant, better than I remember it. Unfortunately the good bits were all left in Morrison’s original script, so this is the first version I’ve ever read that makes a damned bit of sense. A flawed masterpiece.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

Late to the party on this one, as I’ve only just upgraded to a graphics card that can handle the game. I assume we’re all geeks here, and we’re all familiar with the Games Workshop property that is, perhaps, nerdness incarnate.

Let’s just say, if Fallout 3 doesn’t suck up all of my time, then Dawn of War will be getting the rest. Hoo boy, I hope you’re all ready for another dip in productivity. Damn shame I’m fucking awful at RTS games.

The Steel Remains, by Richard Morgan

Britain’s best SF writer tackles fantasy. Half way through this, and it’s very good.

The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom

Picked up at random for being a haunted house book on the cheap at Asda. Last book I got from there was Joe Hill’s Heart Shaped Box, and that one was fantastic.

Again, only half way through it. Good points and bad points and I haven’t made my mind up about it yet, but it’s entertaining and it cost about three quid so I shouldn’t really complain either way.

That’s that faint praise thing again, isn’t it?

Anyway, turns out there’s a competition running in connection with the book, and the first prize is a weekend in that haunted hotel in Ludlow (Ludlow?) that’s been mentioned here before, more than once. The town’s obviously cornering the market in this kind of thing.

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In a recent interview in the Independent (found, I think, via Neil Gaiman’s journal), Terry Pratchett makes a great point about fantasy fiction:

“When you were a kid,” he says, “you’d have a paint box and you’d take it to school. But there was always the rich kid, and he’d got the paint box with the silver and the gold and possibly the turquoise as well. Instead of doing the best you can with the colours you’d got, you really wish you had the colours he’d got. Fantasy gives you the silver and the gold and the turquoise.”

I think that’s true of all the things we’ve talked about here at the Hall, whether it’s fantasy, or SF, or heroes in tights. Sure, it’s possible to get overloaded now and then by the silver and gold and turquoise, but overall you wouldn’t want to make do without it. And that’s why I like the things I like. A story about a wealthy engineer with a drink problem could be brilliant in the right hands. An alcoholic engineer who gets kidnapped by terrorists could make a decent action film. An engineer who then fights back by building powered armour that can fly is, surely, the best option of them all. That’s the gold and the turquoise (or, indeed, the gold and the hot-rod red).

Which isn’t to say Option 1 wouldn’t be fine. Certainly the only option that would ever approach ‘literary merit’, a definition that conceals the metaphorical multitude of sins. Sometimes more grounded work does us some good, and sometimes we need the fantastical.

I can understand completely why someone wouldn’t like any genre stuff. Some people just aren’t set up to have their suspension of disbelief suspended that far. But I don’t really get it when people who have a particular genre thing, but really dislike another branch. Some SF fans dislike fantasy, while there are a lot of fantasy fans who don’t read any SF (just take a look at the balance of books in any given book shop’s SF&F section.) I mean, they’re really not that different. At all. Same goes for the bizarre loathing seen between some comic and manga fans, even taking into account the distorting effects of internet lunatics.

Of course, I would say that. The Journal is something of a broad church, in that if it’s nerdy, I probably like it. I may prefer certain fantasy authors over others, but that’s a writing style thing and I have no objection in principle to the odd elf.

One of the reasons I bring this up is that the fantasy genre’s been on mind. I started re-reading Terry Brooks’ Shannara series again (I think I’ve written about the series before here), and I don’t think I realised before quite how much he gets thing wrong. Thing is, I still like the books, but there doesn’t seem to be a way of describing why without it all sounding like a back-handed compliment.

The Sword of Shannara, the first one, has been taking longer than expected, and part of that is because it is the roughest. And it hits every thing that fantasy authors are criticised for doing; characters lifted wholesale from Tolkien and/or roleplaying tropes, lots and lots and lots of adverbs, odds are good he drew the map before he wrote the first word, and so on. Despite this, I still like it. In fact, it’s exactly the thing I was in the mood to read, because sometimes what you’re in the mood for is an elf belting stuff with a magic sword.

The thing is, if I hadn’t read so much criticism all over the place about adverbs and maps in fantasy novels, I doubt I would have noticed. It underlines how the majority of dos and don’ts when it comes to this kind of thing are purely matters of personal preference at best, and a hoary load of old cobblers at worst.

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Today’s sign of the impending apocalypse: Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy is due to be released next month.

A quick note on yesterday’s post: I’m not saying that “torture porn” in a Nightwing comic is either acceptable or unacceptable. To be honest, I have no interest in either the character or the title. But I’m still upset with DC about the Pa Kent thing. What can I say, my opinion on what constitutes a matter of importance where comics are concerned is a little skewed.

Kids’ toys: Can someone please tell me why the Transformers Classics line has so far released roughly a bajillion modern updates on Generation 1 characters, and yet appears to have no plans for an updated Wheeljack? Or why there’s no Wheeljack in Transformers: Animated? Or in the movie line? Sweet jumping Jesus, I need a new Wheeljack. I’ve only got 5 other versions of him.

You may all continue with your pointing and laughing.

Anime: As I think I’ve mentioned briefly before, I have fond memories of the Guyver animated series released in the 90s. I still find it odd that Japanese manga (a lot of it, anyway) is almost seen as a childish or girly thing to get, when back in the 80s and 90s (in Britain at least) it was seen as a wellspring of gore, horror and, ahem, “adult” situations. Anyway, there was a new updated Guyver series made a few years ago, and I can’t believe it’s taken until now for me to get round to watching it. I’ve seen the first couple of episodes that stick pretty closely to the first series, but I think it diverges pretty quickly after that as the creators get into the storylines that continued on after the previous run finished. I wish someone had the licence to release all the comics in English, because it’s really great stuff. Lots of action, lots of horror, and some of the greatest codenames ever given to giant mutated monsters.

I’m not sure whether it’s better than the original series yet, in that all the events are very compressed, to cover more ground in a shorter time. In the first series, you get more of a feel for the characters simply because you spend more time with them. On the other hand, the animation is way better this time around, and the second half of the first series was a fair bit ropier than the first half. Hopefully they did that a bit better this time round.

The first Guyver animation was actually made in the mid 80s, not long after the manga series had started, and had no connection to the series that followed later. I don’t have the link to hand, but if you check out “Guyver: Out Of Control” on YouTube, you’ll find it uploaded there. Very, very weird if you’ve never seen it before and you’re only familiar with the more recent series. Highlights include a main character with a strange doll-like face, and female Guyver with a seriously dodgy transformation scene.

SF: Given up on the second book of Kevin J. Anderson’s Saga of Seven Suns. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just average, and I’d rather read something great than slog my way though six more books of average. I’ve still got the Rebus series to finish, and Russel T’s tome, and I think I’m better off spending my time on them.

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Well that was a close one, readers. Turns out I didn’t have Ebola Gulf-A after all, but whatever I did have has burned out my blogging mojo, because I’ve started writing this post four times now, and haven’t managed to get further than the first hundred words. Let’s see how I do this time.

I mean, it’s not like there’s a shortage of things to talk about. Like Russell T. Davies’ new book (well, collection of emails), “The Writer’s Tale”. I’ve read the first couple of chapters of this particularly heavy tome, and so far it’s been fascinating. As well as having some candid information about the nuts and bolts of getting Doctor Who made, because it’s made up of the typed back-and-forth between him and Benjamin Cook it’s almost like going through someone else’s inbox. It’s particularly interesting how similar his writing here is to his demeanour in television and print interviews. If nothing else, the man is exceptionally enthusiastic about damn near everything. If you’re a Whovian of any stripe, you really need to read this.

I was going to do a bit on violence in comics, and in popular culture generally, but to be honest people’s reactions to the subject (sometimes valid, sometimes not) have convinced me to shelve it until I can think a bit more clearly about it.

I will say this, though: the phrase “torture porn” has been thrown around a bit in recent years. In some ways, depending on what exactly we’re talking about, I think it’s a misnomer. I mean, I know I’ve used the phrase as a criticism in the past, and to be honest in retrospect I think I was wrong. What it comes down to is that the creators of either the Hostel films or the Saw series didn’t write them to get people off. They just didn’t. Yet that’s what the “porn” tag suggests.

Horror fiction has a very specific function. I am absolutely certain we get attracted to darker types of fiction, be it Silence of the Lambs, Dexter, or even Lovecraft, not because we want to actually eat human flesh/slice people up/summon slimy tentacled nethergods to consume our very Reality, but because it’s a relatively safe way of facing our worst fears, and our own inevitable death. It’s no different to the way comedy makes us face our own pomposity, absurdity or prejudice, and for that reason it doesn’t really surprise me that comedic films and shows get criticised almost as much as slasher flicks do.

Let me put it this way: the Saw franchise is hugely profitable. They are relatively consistant in quality (regardless of what initial value anyone may place on that quality, and besides, compare Saw IV to, say, Halloween IV, and tell me the series doesn’t buck the usual nosedive trend of endless horror sequels), cheap to make, and every film so far has made over $100 million dollars world wide. Leaving the DVD sales to the side for a moment, that means at least 10 million people on the planet have seen at least one of the films. Does anyone honestly want to tell me that these 10 million people wanted to see it because they get off on the violence? Of course not. They went because they wanted to be scared, and that isn’t the function of pornography.

When it comes down to it, people like to be scared. And that kind of catharsis isn’t necessarily damaging.

Wow, this week’s Google hits are going to be interesting.

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A little bit swamped today, so just a single item for you good people. And it’s a real WTfuckingfuckingF? moment, from Ain’t It Cool News:

“Screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh (’Die Hard With A Vengeance,’ ‘Jumanji,’ ‘The Saint,’ ‘Armageddon,’ ‘The Punisher,’ ‘Next’) is developing an AMC series based on Kim Stanley Robinson’s 1992 sci-fi novel ‘Red Mars’.”

The guy who co-wrote Armageddon. And The Punisher. And the fucking Saint. Producing one of the few true hard-SF classics of the past twenty years.

Utilising the kind of reasoning on display here, in terms of the assignment of individuals with a certain skill-set to important works of fiction, can I be the first to request a television adaptation of Asimov’s Foundation by the production team behind Battlefield Earth, a remake of Seven Samurai where the cast is made up entirely of subtitled monkeys dressed in garb appropriate to the English Restoration period, and a radical reboot, a reimagining, of the Epic of Gilgamesh by an illiterate alcoholic whom, after spending the last twenty years literally drinking nothing but White Lightning, is blind and unable to stop soiling himself constantly and then rubbing it in his own face and the faces of anyone near to him.

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Some (non-Alien/Predator for once) tat I really, really need to own, spotted at io9: An incredibly detailed Iron Man toy.

Other news has Kenneth Branagh in talks to direct Thor. This is a great idea. His Frankenstein film came up as a conversation topic the other day, and although I remember it having a lukewarm reception, it really was a decent film, with a great cast, and probably one of the steam-punkiest films to ever have a wide release. If Branagh brings that kind of atmosphere and imagination to the Asgard scenes, the film’s going to be amazing. On one hand, I’d love to have a crazy Kirby-fest, but until someone gets Pixar to make Michael Chabon’s 60s set Fantastic Four film it’s not going to happen, so I’ll settle for Oddly Gothic.

The Green Lantern film appears to be ramping up. I don’t see why they don’t just adapt the recent Secret Origin storyline, because I really love that story. I mean, I’m one of the (apparently few) people who quite liked Emerald Dawn, but I don’t really want a screen adaptation of it, and I’m glad the crippling-his-mate-while-drink-driving thing’s been retconned (ret-retconned?) away. I’d be interested to see who they tap for the aliens. I bet Weta’d do an awesome job, but I’d be happy with the Henson Creature Shop too. No news on Sinestro, but he’s got to be in it. Presumably as Hal’s mentor in the first one, and the antagonist in GL II.

Johns has been playing down Sinestro’s alien-ness in Secret Origin so far, in that when he turned up in Rebirth a big deal was made of his, well, sinister demeanor and alien unknowability. Which was really cool, playing up the idea that not every alien species in the Corps was just humanity with a funny skin colour. It gave a sense of original Star Trek-type mystery, the vibe that it’s cold and scary out in space, something that doesn’t always come through in space comics. Of course, that spin doesn’t quite fit with the other Korugans we’ve seen, or Sinestro back when he was a Lantern. Perhaps the cold freakishness isn’t an alien thing, but a symptom of his time spent exiled, either on Qward or inside the Battery. Which is quite cool, too.

Quite looking forward to Neil Gaiman’s new book. It looks a bit more up my street than some of his other work. I think Gaiman’s a great writer, and when he’s good, he’s brilliant. I love Neverwhere, and the original Books of Magic, Anansi Boys was a lot of fun and I’m making my way through his Sandman stuff in the Absolute editions. But I never really got American Gods, I found Eternals a bit lacking and 1602 was let down by a weak ending after a great start. I always meant to go back and read Gods again because I’d probably get more out of it second time round, but I can’t find much enthusiasm for it, really. I think I’d be too busy trying to figure out where all the different gods came from, and while a little bit of that can be fun, the sheer amount of them in the book makes the whole thing too much like hard work.

But a story about a kid raised by ghosts in a graveyard? Kind of thing you wish you’d thought of yourself, really. I’m a little underwhelmed by the McKean cover, but it’s ok because they’re also offering an alternate one by artist Chris Riddell. Riddell’s a fantastic cartoonist, one I remember really clearly from my time as a bookseller. He really stood out amongst the children’s illustrators, his “Rabbit and Hedgehog” books in particular. Even if they may skew a little young for the Journal’s readership.

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It’ll be damn sight greener when Caerffili County Borough Council gets round to sorting out kerbside recycling. The fornightly trip to the local “Recycling Centre” with a boot-full of plastic is starting to get a little old.

I notice a bit of buzz about a Best Picture Oscar push for The Dark Knight. Ain’t going to happen, folks, not for a flick about a man in rubber. Although you’d be daft to bet against a post-humous one for Heath Ledger, because there’s nothing anyone likes more than human tragedy.

Speaking of the Academy Awards and on the subject of the film I got today’s post title from, the Academy has made some completely crackers decisions over the years. I mean, I’m as Wales-centric a person as you’ll find in the Fair Country, but How Green Was My Valley beat The Maltese Falcon and Citizen Kane to the Best Picture/Director Oscars. Really, 1940s Hollywood? Really? Maybe one for Batman isn’t utterly outside the realms of possibility, and to be fair I can’t really think of a serious grown-up film about grown-up stuff that’s come out this year. But then, that’s probably just me being mesmerised by all the big screen pretty pretty explodey.

There’s always the Bond, though, and Bond’s been on my mind. Via Mick, I’ve been making my way through snell’s Bond reviews. Well worth your time, the review of The Spy Who Loved Me being particularly good in that it’s spot-on in identifying the film as over-rated, and explaining why.

You know what, I don’t think I’ve seen For Your Eyes Only. I must have, because ITV used to do a Saturday night Bond season at least once a year and I wouldn’t have kept missing the same one. But I don’t remember a single thing about it, apart from the theme, but that’s just from watching those “Best Bond Theme” chart programmes they do everytime there’s a new one in the cinema (in fact, aren’t we about due a new one that includes the Chris Cornell track?)

As for the original Bond novels, I’ve only read Casino Royale, although I intend to make my way through the rest of them at some point. And the more I hear about the original Moonraker, the worse the piece of shit film looks, and the more I wish the BBC could do a faithful period Bond drama, with someone like Ben Cross in the title role. Brother Paul and I have talked about James Bond: The Series a lot over the years. You’re telling me people wouldn’t watch a three-part Cold War thriller mini-series featuring ex-Nazis and a plan to annihilate London? They’d shovel that up even without James Bond in it. Damn you, copyright laws, damn you all to hell.

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Sweet Lord Cthulhu on a landspeeder, isn’t the American election over yet? I am so very, very sick of reading about that doddering old bastard and that loon he’s got running with him. Well, let’s face it, it’s that loon that most people seem to be writing about, and I’ve reached a saturation point where I no longer care. Am I not concerned with matters of global political significance? Of course I am. That’s why I just want them to hurry up and get on with whatever it is they need to get on with so we can all return our focus to impending economic catastrophe and building nuclear bunkers in our gardens. Because “Jabbing Russia With A Pokey Stick” had become a popular past-time of late and that has always turned out so well before.

I don’t know, it’s always easy to roll your eyes at how fucking bugnuts the world is, because you don’t have to look too far to find the crazy at any given point in history. But the whole creationism thing has really been eating at me recently. You kind of expect it of our fellows across the Atlantic (and I don’t mean to have a mean old jab or anything, but it does seem to come up a lot over there), but I get really itchy when it crops up in British newspapers as a thing. I mean, we all know it’s crazy? Don’t we? It’s just a stupid thing the media wants to make a drama of, right?

Then again, the politicians have recently started taking pot shots at women’s reproductive rights, and I thought that particular battle had been won a long time ago (ho, ho). It just doesn’t take much effort for matters to regress.

How depressing. Let’s have some links.

A three-year Southampton University study into the “out-of-body experience” phenomenon has kicked off. Because we are all cursed to never learn from the mistakes of Kiefer Sutherland in Flatliners.

Alien tat of the day: Almost five hundred quid’s worth of coffee table. If I could, I would buy all of the outrageously priced Alien and Predator junk I could get my hands on, and keep it all in one room tastefully decorated by Giger himself.

Irish novelist Eoin Colfer has been hired to write a sixth Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy novel. Now, this is an interesting story. Not surprising, because Douglas Adams’ books have always been incredibly popular, and who wants the gravy train to stop just because the author’s dead? I’m sure plenty of fanboys are screaming bloody murder.

But. I always felt the fifth Hitchhiker’s was awful, and a terrible way to end the series. And Adams always said he intended to do a sixth. I’m not what you’d call a dedicated fan of his, which makes it easier for me not to mind so much, I suppose. And I’ve never read any of Colfer’s work, but he really is phenomenally popular so he must have something going for him. I just really want a better ending than Mostly Harmless. Seriously, it was such a downer it really spoiled my enjoyment of the earlier books. So I’m certainly picking this one when it comes out.

And finally, a few bits of sad news from the music industry; the deaths of Pink Floyd’s Richard Wright and Motown’s Norman Whitfield. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been getting my prog on recently, and probably appreciating the Floyd more than I have in the past. And Whitfield, christ, just look at a list of songs he co-wrote. Those are some of the greatest records ever made. And he was right. War is good for absolutely nothing.

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Ok, I mention Star Wars in passing, and the Hall’s viewing stats go through the roof. What the fudge is that all about? Maybe I shouldn’t have, you know, been slagging the series off. Oh well, unfortunately the X-Wing stuff really did stink.

Broadly related to this, I’m about halfway through Kevin J. Anderson’s Hidden Empire. Whatever criticism can be levelled at him, I find him a very easy writer to read. Some writers just seem to have a knack with prose that can be read through really quickly, I suppose. It’s engaging enough, although if it had turned into a bit of a slog then there’s nothing here that would have been so new or interesting that it kept me reading.

That’s a skill in itself, considering how many flaming characters are in this book. They’re all a bit cardboard, and the dialogue goes clunk-clunk a lot, and it’s all a bit lukewarm in the same way that Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time is a bit lukewarm, and I think that’s the series that most resembles this one. There’s no subtlety at all, and I don’t know if that comes from having to wrangle such a huge cast and a lot of incident, or if Anderson just has a bit of a sledgehammer approach. A lot of stuff gets repeated, either because the author forgot he’d already mentioned something or he thought that his readers would have forgotten the detail in amongst everything else.

The biggest criticism is the so far uninspiring villains, who’s chosen Armada of Doom is made up of big spikey flying balls. I mean, what thought went into that? “Kev, are you sure you don’t want to come up with something more imaginative that big spikey flying ball spaceships?” “But, but, they’re really big spikey flying ball spaceships.” “Oh well, go on then. If they’re really big.”

He must be doing something right, though, because I’m still reading.

That really had nothing to do with Star Wars. Neither does the rest of this post.

Scott Kurtz’s PvP recently had a strip ruminating on what was the cooler Maneuver, the Adama or the Picard. For those of you unsure what this means, in short it means that the Fractal Hall Journal isn’t anywhere near its depth limit when it come to nerdy matters, though yesterday’s Linux post appeared to be rock bottom.

The answer’s easy, and Kurtz loads it anyway. A short warp-drive hop back and forth to make it look like one ship is two (more correctly the Barry Allen Maneuver, surely?), or using an FTL drive to jump into a planet’s atmosphere, drop all the smaller fighter craft as the mothership falls, then jump out before it crashes. Bad luck, Frenchie.

Ah, webcomics. First one I ever read was Get Your War On (big thanks to Chum Mike for that one). It was a bit of a revelation. Not least because sometime around ‘98 or ‘99 I had big plans to do something like that myself. It’s tied in with blogging too, because the first online journal thing I ever followed was Websnark, which (at the time) dealt mostly with webcomics. I read shed-loads of webcomics for about a year after the discovery, then whittled them down as the novelty wore off. Sixish months ago I stopped reading any except Penny Arcade. Burn-out, I guess. The other ones I picked up again and follow regularly are Shortpacked! and PvP. That’s three left standing out of dozens, and to be honest I never really liked PvP until the last year or so (just about the time everyone else thinks it went downhill, oddly). I still read Questionable Content occasionally, and while Starslip Crisis isn’t quite my cup of tea, I can appreciate how good it can be.

I think the PA’s Jerry Holkins is the best writer in the field, not just in the strip but also in his daily posts. The best artist (and second best writer, actually) is Scary Go Round’s John Allison, by a fair margin. In both disciplines, his style is so unique and interesting, his influences (Qunetin Blake, in particular) obvious but not overwhelming, incorporating what came before but creating something new. I’ve lost track of the strip a bit, but I think that’s more to do with wanting to save up a chunk of strips over time to read them all in one go. He’s maybe not quite as good at resolving stories as the rest of it, but the artwork is gorgeous.

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I realise now that yesterday’s post was barely coherent. I guess last week’s kitten-fest fuzzed the old brain. Also, I completely forgot to mention why I found it interesting that it was Justine Larbalestier’s blog that made me think about why we pick up the books we do, and whether gender has anything to do with it.

I think the point I’m trying to make is that in the past there weren’t that many women being published writing the kind of thing I liked to read (i.e. spaceships, etc.) compared to men, but now there are more and thanks to the internet I’m more likely to find them. That’s my feeble justification, anyway.

Larbalestier’s blog is an interesting case because I would never have stumbled on her writing other than in the particular way we randomly find things on the internet. As an author of teen fiction- teen fiction about fairies, no less- It just wouldn’t have sounded like stuff I would like. Might not be anything I’d like, because liking someone’s blog and liking someone’s fiction are two different things.

On a related note, some of the funniest books I’ve ever read are Louise Rennison’s teen fiction ones. You may be familiar with the one about thongs and snogging that’s just been made into a film and if you’re all wondering what that whooshing noise is, it’s the number of Google referrals to the Journal going through the roof. Honest to God, the books are absolutely hilarious, and the only reason I’ve read some of them is from reading them behind the till when I worked at Waterstones.

Oh, great post on Richard Carrier’s blog on a subject tangentially related to the above, via, erm, I forget where. Well worth a read.

To hop back onto a subject more typically discussed on the Journal, and to make an utter nonsense of any declaration about trying to read something written by a woman, by someone I’m not familiar with, or outside of my comfort zone, or any combination of the above, I’ve just started reading Kevin J. Anderson’s Saga of Seven Suns. I haven’t read any of Anderon’s stuff for years, but I liked his Star Wars and X-Files tie-ins as a young ‘un. It’s alright so far, an enjoyable enough space-opera thing. Dialogue’s a little clunky in places, but it trundles along with plenty of spaceships. Hopefully it’ll kick off a bit when All Out War comes to the galaxy, but in the meantime he’s taking his time setting up a whooooooole load of characters. Comic fans may be interested to know the book’s dedicated to Igor Kordey, the Croatian penciller who wasn’t Frank Quitely on Morrison’s X-Men run.

Damn, I remember when I was properly into the Star Wars spin-offs. I think it was the interminable X-Wing series that killed it for me. I mean, there was a series I really wanted to like, having racked up an unthinkable amount of hours on X-Wing and Tie Fighter. But there were about, what, thirty books in that series? And I couldn’t get through one. And because of the Continuity Nerd problem I’ve got (and thank you once again, comics) where I have to read everything in the right order, and not skip parts of the series even if they stink, it made reading the spin-offs a huge chore. I ruined it for myself, is what I’m saying. But I’m glad I stopped before they killed off Chewbacca, because Hal Jordan was enough for one decade.

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