lyster

I know, I may be the last person in fandom to read this book, and after winning the Arthur C. Clarke award, garnering rave reviews, and essentially founding the steampunk genre, it doesn’t need any help from me.

But I’m not here to talk about the characters, most of whom are just as honorable and twisted as real-life people, nor about the language, which is gorgeous and depraved, though my editor brain, honed from obsessive rereads of Three Parts Dead over the last few months, occasionally catches Mieville reusing words he really should not reuse (febrile, putrefying). I’m here to tell a story:

Yesterday as I walked to work I read a section of the book that features a horrible insect monster. This is not a spoiler, as within the first five or six pages it becomes clear that horrible monsters of some sort, probably insectile, are an inevitable consequence of Mieville’s world.

As I read, I think to myself: “You know, this would be really scary if I were reading it at night; as it is, it’s great, honest fun and not particularly scary at all.”

At that moment, the wind decided to blow a plastic candy wrapper over the pebbly sidewalk at my feet, producing a sound not unlike giant insect legs tickling over a wooden floor. I first saw the wrapper in question from an unusual vantage point, because upon hearing the strange sound I had jumped about a foot and a half straight up in the air out of abject monkey-brain terror.

So much for broad daylight, I suppose.

orewashinanai referred to the personal utility function in a recent post, which put me in mind of a philosophy lecture I attended as an undergrad featured one of the most hilarious displays of academic obliviousness I've ever had the pleasure to see.

The young philosophy professor in question was giving a lecture on utilitarianism to an auditorium of 120 undergraduates.

"The basic idea is, we determine how much utility is derived from doing something. So say there's an act, f." He scribbles a letter 'f' on the board. "And say we derive about twenty units of utility from f.'ing"

A giggle or two from the crowd. I raise one eyebrow.

"Now, if we f. something, or someone, and it gives the other person some utility too-"

More chuckles. The professor looks over his shoulder, evidently confused. He draws two stick figures on the board, on either side of the 'f', with an arrow moving from one to the other through the 'f.'

"Say if this person over here derives only 10 units of utility from my f.'ing them, then that would be less desirable than if they derived 20 units of utility from my f.'ing them."

Much of the class is laughing uncontrollably now. The professor looks around again.

"Do I have something on my jacket?"

More laughter. He checks his jacket. There is, needless to say, nothing on the jacket.

"So, in sum, we can rate how 'good' the f.-ing of a thing is by the amount of utility everyone derives from-"

And this is about when I lost it and joined with the laughter.

Either that professor was the best actor or the driest academic I've had the pleasure of knowing...

(mirrored from maxgladstone.com)

Recently I picked up Still Life with Crows, a thriller by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, who also wrote the fun Relic and Cabinet of Curiosities and who, really, need no linkage from me. The writing is brisk and doesn't get in your way unless you pay close attention to it (they could stand to reign in their use of semicolons a touch, for example), the characters are vivid, the mystery fast-paced, and the monster chilling. Good, clean fun (I'm uncomfortable with the word "escapist" for a variety of reasons, but that's a post for another day). If you're a thriller reader and you like glacier-cool protagonists, law enforcement politics, and a bit of the old ultra-violence, you'll like these books — start with Relic if you really want the aggregate experience.

I was in an elevator the other day, and a coworker asked me what I was reading. I described the book and mentioned that I was reading it because it's fun, and because I like writing books that have monsters in them and it's always good to see what works. I got the considering "Are you sure you shouldn't be reading Jane Austen" eye (I've read Austen, thank you, she's great and does not require the addition of monsters in the slightest, however she's not an author who fits all of my seasons) and shrugged it off.

A moment later, a squat, balding, older man sharing the elevator with us turned around to me and said, "Good for you. A lot of people out there like to read those kind of books better than ones without monsters in them." The elevator dinged for his floor, and he left.

In Mahayana Buddhism we encounter the concept of the Bodhisattva: an enlightened being who has pledged not to enter Nirvana until she has enlightened all other sentient beings and brought them to Nirvana before her. (I like the image of a bunch of Bodhisattvas hanging around near the end of the kalpa, like the proverbial southern gentlemen at the narrow door: "You go first!" "No, I insist.")

Bodhisattvas don't go around announcing themselves: they appear, provide their momentary assistance, and leave. Anyone can be ridden by a Bodhisattva, any action or thing can be their tool. Every once in a while, I start wondering about the inherent virtue of the type of writing I do. When I fall into this kind of trap, it's a true joy to have a bodhisattva drop in, give me a kick in the pants, and leave me to get back to work.

So, thank you Monster Bodhisattva! I'll return the favor sometime.

Happy Friday, and Happy October! If you're in the market for good books leading up to Halloween, head to your local library and check out Roger Zelazny's A Night in Lonesome October; if pure horror (with some comedy thrown in) is more your game, then you're in luck: David Wong's excellent John Dies At The End was just re-issued by St. Martin's. Think Lovecraftian horror written by a slacker Terry Pratchett.

In other news, multimedia fantasy experience Baeg Tobar recently relaunched. It's a fun world, with a lot of history and ground to explore. I've done a few short stories for them that will premier over the next couple months, as has alanajoli, so this will hardly be my last plug for them. Go now and explore out the beginnings of what will, in the coming weeks, grow to be a robust fantasy offering. Airships, fae, elder gods, and a bunch of wacky fun stuff.

Keep on rocking in the free world.

Woah! Chiptunes became pop music while I was in China (2006-8)?! What else have I missed? Quick, tell me!

It's been a busy couple weeks; I'm closing in on the fifth draft of my new novel, and I desperately owe an editor a short story. So of course I take a bit of time around lunch to dash off a quick review of / commentary on Boris Akunin's awesome and formally interesting Sister Pelagia mysteries. I could write about these for a long time but spoilers would ensue; for the moment I'm content to point you in the direction of what I've done thus far:

Sister Pelagia and the Outsider Sleuth @ maxgladstone.com

Some other links may catch your fancy: a friend and fellow Substrater launched his new website, and I'm sure everybody's very interested in the debut of Genreville. To fill out the list of three, if you're remotely interested in horror and haven't read or pre-ordered John Dies At The End, you deserve to treat yourself. High octane nightmare fuel by the editor of Cracked.com: what's not to love? This is one of the only books that's ever made me actually loose sleep, though admittedly reading it at 3 am during a blackout in rural China in a bedroom populated by four-inch-diameter spiders didn't help.

I am not a morning person. I am a slugabed, wake-me-when-the-world-is-dark-and-happy-again type, stumbling for the kitchen to get coffee.

I recently found a day job, which has been amazing in the financial department, but required a re-ordering of my schedule: I need to now be somewhere looking professional at 9 in the morning. There's a half-hour commute. And my kitchen is currently being refurbished, which means no morning coffee (unless I was willing to resort to instant, which we all know is a bad idea).

I expected to grudgingly deal with this situation. Yet last night, after some carousing in celebration of a coworker's leaving the office to return to the teaching life, followed by an exceptionally successful Arkham Horror game (the players won!) in which more carousing occurred, I pinged awake this morning with only slight reluctance and staggered towards the shower, no "snooze" button involved.

Because I needed to get my edit on. And the interval between 7.15 am and 8 is the one span of editing time that will never be wrested from me by work, friends, or family. It's not my only time in the day -- I'd never get anything done otherwise -- but it's a start.

And it's awesome. I can take that time to review edits made the previous day, to really drill into a particular paragraph, to tie characters more tight to one another or just to contemplate how an eight-foot-tall, one-ton statue moving might look to a smaller, fleshier observer.

Maybe I wouldn't recommend this wake-up technique to everyone; people who don't feel a pull to any writing implement in the neighborhood might not like it. But maybe this is what people mean when they say, do something that makes you want to get out of bed in the morning.

In the last couple weeks I've been working on what I hope is a very thorough edit of my new novel, Three Parts Dead. This is part of August Editing Month; I've promised myself that in the month of August I'm not going to start work on another long project, and am instead going to polish the two novels I've finished in the last year until the Mass government can buy them for use as lighthouses.

This means slow passes through the story, re-writing of dialogue, and paying very close attention to language. A rule-of-thumb size for a novel manuscript is 100,000 words, and in the process of writing that many words, as in the process of running a marathon, you're going to develop some distinctive tics in your style.

Good distance runners work the kinks out of their stride if they want to avoid hurting themselves; same with good writers. Taking this to heart, I'm assembling a list of words, phrases, and techniques I'm not allowed to play with any more (at least not until I play with some of my other toys more). Here's what I have so far:

Immense
Just (the adverb)
for a moment
at last
vast
interrupted dialogue ("But Susan, haven't you considered-" "There's no time for that now!" It's a fine effect but I use it too much.)

What about the rest of you out there? Anyone else have these in their writing?

After a conversation while moving many heavy boxes this weekend, it occurred to me that I hadn't listened to "In My Darkest Hour" by Arlo Guthrie in a long while.

I've never almost cried at work before.

New experiences every day.

I saw Harry Potter 6 on Wednesday, which was great -- some of the best acting in the series thus far, and as per usual the special effects were way above par; better even than they often appear in the books, to my mind.

And so of course I've spent the last two days thinking about the Sherlock Holmes trailer before the movie. Short line: a departure from traditional Holmes, but in a really awesome way. The movie might be crap, but the interpretation, that's the neat part. I get into my justification a bit over on my other blog, maxgladstone.com.

Saw China Mieville yesterday at a Harvard Book Store book signing. Posted my thoughts on my blog: http://www.maxgladstone.com.

Go read!

I'm in LA with Steph this week, enjoying the rocking weather. And there's more than just the sunshine to celebrate: The Book of Exodi, containing my short story "On Starlit Seas," is now available on Amazon.com!

If the couple stories I've had any experience with are to be any indication, TBoE is going to be a great volume. All stories engage with the concept of mass exodus (from planet to planet or continent to continent or time to time) in some form or other, and they feature some excellent illustrations in addition, of course, to good prose. Check it out at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936075008

Just went for my first morning run in about seven months, and I feel awesome! Quicker, stronger, more productive. Of course, that's running for you. The first time back is great. The second one is when the pain sets in.

I'm listening to SecurityNow podcasts while I work on stuff for the Berkman Center, having finally decided that being a Chinese specialist is not enough; I need to educate myself about infosec as well. I've learned all sorts of wonderful new words already, and I'm only a few podcasts in. My favorite thus far is "honey monkey."

Oh, and in case any of you don't know this yet, I've finally acquiesced to the Herd and procured a Twitter account. Follow me at twitter.com/astralknowledge!

America is a funny place. To wit, the Fox television show Fringe.

In the first five minutes of the pilot, we watch a super fast-acting flesh eating toxin released in an airplane coming into Logan airport. We see about 150 people with flesh melting from their faces. The copilot's jaw actually falls off of national TV before we pop to credits.

Slam cut to: two mature hot adult FBI super-WASP agents, of opposite genders natch, lying in a motel room bed after some clearly satisfying off-camera action. They kiss closed-mouthed. The man's section of the bedsheets are around his waist; the woman keeps adjusting her sheets so they never get more than two inches below her chin.

We have, within five minutes, seen a man's face melt off in gruesome detail in camera closeup, and a quite attractive woman's body covered by a sheet.

Later, though, they don't mind the nice exploitative closeups of the same female FBI agent in her underwear when she has to strip down so a mad scientist working for the government can plug her into a psychic dream machine and shoot her full of acid. (The LSD kind - or the LDS kind, if you're of the Star Trek IV persuasion).

The order of acceptability here, in case you missed it, from most to least: dude's face melting off, followed by weird power-differential situation with sexy sexy camera angles, and then, least acceptable, non-fetishized nudity in a consensual sexual relationship.

Though maybe I'm just being cranky because of the swine flu.

My most recent Substrate blog post is up at virgilandbeatrice.com/substrate, and you should all go check it out. John Gardner's theories of writing, compared and contrasted with good ol' fashioned Karate stance work. Might be a bit of a blowhard, but that's what comes of throwing together a blog post too late at night.

Life is good. I'm getting a little less writing than I'd like done, but that's the way of the world. Three Parts Dead is at 75k and I've got a nice little short I'm trying to get set up and polished for an anthology, not to mention a really fun piece for Baeg Tobar that I'll keep y'all up to date on.

And of course you can pre-order a copy of the anthology with my story in it at Eposic Diversions' website!

Best wishes, and I'll catch you all around.

So a writing group I've created has just started a group blog on the estimable alanajoli's server:

http://virgilandbeatrice.com/substrate

Go, read, comment!

In other news, I just watched my first episode of Castle. It's awesome: you can tell it's not a Fox show because there's an ensemble cast, rather than one key character who does everything and makes everyone else look like an idiot. Nathan Fillion is hilarious, too.

Still, I wonder why television designers keep putting female detectives in heels, even when they're fixing to bust into a criminal's apartment. Wouldn't you want, you know, Asics for that kind of thing?

Walking back from an amazing dinner at the suspiciously-underpriced-for-its-quality Basta Pasta, the Lady and I decided to stop in at Pandemonium, local game-cum-sci-fi-book shop, for an after-dinner peruse.

The Orthodox churches were parading Good Friday outside, candlelight and low melodic songs, as I stepped in from the twilight. The first thing I did was, as per usual, visit the used 'Z' section, because Roger Zelazney is the man and for some reason almost everything he ever wrote is out of print, save the brilliant Lord of Light.

And what should I find there, waiting (it seemed) for me, but an entire new shelf of Zelazney books -- Unicorn Variations (a collection of shorts), Doorways in the Sand (an amazing light Sci Fi adventure), and first paperback editions of every book in the Chronicles of Amber save for the fourth book, Hand of Oberon, which, coincidentally, I'd picked up in original paperback last year in a small bookshop in Siem Reap, the gateway to Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

Now, the Amber chronicles are not my favorite Zelazney, but they're rollicking, expansive, and at best brilliantly experimental (not as much as, say, Creatures of Light and Darkness, but still).

To top it off, apparently April is "clear out our paperback inventory" month @ Pandemonium. All used paperbacks, US$2. So I picked up a shelf of really amazing science fiction for the cost of a book and a half of new stuff.

A nice little windfall after a great week.

Good, clean fun. Not one of those I'm going to track down and watch again, but a good ol' romp with hungry beasties, wormholes, etc. Hardly any character development, and none of the moral weight from the Christmas Special. Also, of course you can use the Sonic Screwdriver to polarize sunglasses.

The Household was somewhat divided on the worth of Lady Christina de Somethingorother (Souza) as a human being. Steph points out, and I agree, that "I did it 'coz it was fun, not 'coz of the money!" hardly exonerates one from moral responsibility for stealing a priceless artifact. Seems likely to me that the Dr. agrees, and that "People keep dying when they travel with me" is code for "You're a manic-depressive attention monkey, and a sneak thief, and do you really think I'm going to let you loose on the multiverse?"

Now, sure, Ten is a manic-depressive attention monkey at times, but he's at least on the side of the good guys.

Some slight modifications to make the episode better: The Doctor didn't actually need the gold; he just convinced Christina he did so as to get it from her. Then he goes back in time and replaces Howl's Cup with a replica, because crossing your own timeline is strictly forbidden except for cheap tricks.

Also, his change of heart in the final scene: "Did you think I was going to let her get caught up in the justice system on Earth? They use adversarial deliberation down here!"

Before I moved to Tennessee, I didn't know what people did on Sundays.

We moved down when I was ten because my parents got a job teaching at an Episcopalian school. When I stepped out of the moving van, I saw the stars above me like god's own pinpricks in the sky, but this isn't that story. My parents attended the school's church for a while on Sundays, and I went with them, marveling in the music and the windows and the art and the prayers, and the fact that people took a little time out of their week to contemplate the Ultimate. I wanted to go up to take communion, but the priest said that only those who had been baptized were free to do so. I accepted his blessing anyway, feeling like a door had been closed on me at the age of eleven. But this isn't that story either.

This school celebrated Vigil every year. After the evening Maundy Thursday service, a small team of students and teachers would rise from the congregation, approach the lady chapel, knock for admittance, exchange a greeting with those praying within, and gain access to that space, decorated with garlands, to watch with Jesus for half an hour before they would be relieved in turn.

For those of you who don't do Vigil, the point is that Jesus can't sleep because he knows he's about to die, and he wants his disciples to stay awake with him. Yet they don't. I always felt that to be the biggest clue into the mystery of the season: the Messiah came, and we deserted him. We broke faith; we let him be handed over, and then we killed him, because that's what we do. We've been incredibly good, as a species, at handing over our Messiahs. But they come back anyway. He came back anyway.

So we keep watch now, because we didn't then. We keep watch to remind ourselves that we should be keeping watch more often.

My parents let me go with them to sit vigil for the first time when I was twelve. The flowers in the shadows made the tiny walls of the lady chapel open out into endless space. I was in awe.

But I was twelve. So after sitting one way for about five minutes, I was uncomfortable and needed to shift my legs. Then that position became uncomfortable, so I shifted again. Then the flower pollen got in my nose, and I sneezed. In a silent room, the slightest sound is an avalanche. I don't know what I must have sounded like.

When we left the lady chapel my father told me he had been disappointed that I had made so much noise, and suggested that if I couldn't sit still for half an hour, I might not want to come at all. This was a serious business, this ceremony, not to be trifled with. I had been disrespectful.

Trifling! Twelve-year-old Max was outraged. I can sit in meditation! I just needed to sneeze, that was all. I'll show you how respectful I can be. And once the outrage passed, I felt really ashamed: had I let the ceremony down? Let the community down? Had I broken the ritual?

A sensible person would have pledged to do it better next year. I, on the other hand, decided that if I couldn't go right back and sit another vigil in the lady chapel, I would sit one at home.

There is a seated position in the Japanese martial arts called seiza. You fold your calves under your thighs and sit back on your heels. This position is used for basic meditation, and shows up throughout Japanese culture, where it's regarded as a polite and healthy way to sit.

In Karate class, I had sat seiza before in meditation and in discussions with my sensei. Now, I decided I would sit seiza for vigil. Half an hour, no talking, no sneezing, no adjustment of position. And so I sat. When my legs started to tingle with a lack of circulation, I let them. When the tingling faded, to be replaced with a warm, liquid sensation, I let it. I was deep in vigil, my eyes on the far wall, half closed, my mind in my breath.

I was silent, and awake.

A half hour later, the timer I had set beeped. In the lady chapel, a quiet knock on the door stirred a team of vigil-keepers. I tried to rise.

And, of course, fell promptly on my face, as my entire lower body had gone numb some twenty minutes before. I'd had my arm or my hand go to sleep before, but never an entire section of my body. I thought I must have done something permanent to myself. I lay there, face in the carpet, legs still frozen in seiza position, vainly attempting to unbend my knees, flopping like a fish thrown on the deck of a boat, and thinking to myself, well, you've done it now, haven't you?

As that thought crossed my mind, the nerves in my legs and groin started to wake up, and I very quickly became on a first-name basis with pain. But I had kept vigil, at least. That was some consolation, once the agony finally started to fade and left me with at least some measure control over my lower extremities.

I'm not sure what that experience proves, if anything other than one should beware of undertaking to sit vigil just to prove one can do it. But there's something I love about that kid, lying face-down and immobile on the floor in the moment of his triumph. Sometimes I wonder if I've ever been anyone else.

I swung down to I-Con Long Island on Friday to do some meet-people-and-hand-out-business-cards stuff (after a particularly bad typing accident in 2008 I still can't write the word "networking" without it looking like "newtorking") with alanajoli and Max S.; five hours on the Fenghua bus, another two hours on the LIRR, and then, arriving outside the con, an hour and a half long wait to get even through the front doors. Once there, though, I met some awesome people, had good chats about game design, 4E, Cortex, and a bunch of related madness.

I'd been intending to get back Saturday morning, but plans ended up changing on the fly, which led to an awesome detour to Branford and New Haven, surprise Dr. Who watching, and a lot of Tony Jaa kicking people in the face. I used to be bad at these kind of last-minute schedule changes, but I think two years of China-style scheduling has done wonders for my ability to go with the flow.

So in short, a wonderful weekend, with good food, conversation, and company, capped off with a delicious sushi dinner yesterday.

Sometimes, my life is so awesome I can't help but feel a little guilty.