Doctor Who (and Sarah Jane Smith) Posts of Interest

Here are a few interesting posts I’ve come across:

Postcards from the Hedge talks about the rise, fall and rise of Doctor Who in the UK. This is particularly interesting as it comes from a longtime fan who was never part of fandom.

Vicious Imagery is a blog by the tv/radio writer who not only wrote some darned good Sarah Jane novels (that I can’t get, darn it) but also did the second season of Sarah Jane Smith audio adventures from Big Finish. (Dang, and just when I thought I could save some money.) He’s also just written a bunch of gaming tie-in novels, which pretty much completes the pentathlon of king geekdom.

But I Really Don’t Feel Like Reading Today! Whine, Cry, Pout….

I suspect this is because my apartment building hasn’t turned on the heat yet. It’s not exactly wintry around here, but it’s chilly enough that the radiator would come in handy. Yes, when your nose and hands are cold, and you spent the night cold and woke up tired, somehow you just don’t feel much like reading. Even if you do have a new Bujold hardcover to finish. What I really want is to go somewhere warm and nap unobtrusively.

Time to turn on the oven again to get some heat in here. But it’s my rule not to fall asleep with the oven on, and I’m afraid I will.

Oh, well. It could be worse. I could be in Buffalo, with 20 inches of snow.

That Horrible Sinking Feeling of Doooooom!

It’s the feeling you get when you’re not really awake yet, and then you remember that yesterday, you never got around to updating that post on romances — you were going to remove the partial review of Lois McMaster Bujold’s new book, because you’d only gotten part way through and it really wasn’t on topic anyway? The bit where you really were just bitching about a single scene you didn’t like?

And then, you find out that the post’s been linked to.

By the Bujold list.

Yep, that’s the feeling. I just thought I’d share. Before I even go look at what folks said. Because I used to be on that list, and some of the people there even know me….

(It’s not that I regret what I said, mind you. But I don’t really believe in bitching about good writers and books without putting the whole thing into context, or finishing the book. Or perhaps finding a kinder way to say what I mean, as I don’t want to discourage people. Also, I admit that my mood was not particularly good when I wrote what I did, which is hardly Bujold’s fault.)

So, anyway. Let me go finish the book (hey, Sarah Jane’s comeback episode was on last night!), and then write a real review and put it up. And then I’ll go read myself being pilloried or inappropriately championed or whatever. And then… I think I’ll move away and leave no forwarding address! 🙂

UPDATE: Thank you, Lord. They were only following the old links to my Chalion/Spanish history post.

*Maureen sighs with relief* If I’m going to be pilloried, I want to be pilloried for my mature and considered opinions! 🙂

Er… About Those Memes….

I know I have two memes outstanding. For some reason, this week I’m just not feeling decisive, or getting any ideas on how to answer. Perhaps I will be more energetic tomorrow morning. (I hope so. Memes are fun.)

Romances and Natural Law

I’ve run across a certain amount of litcrit and feminist literature about romance novels. (Amazing how long most feminist litcrit wasn’t interested in what most women in America were reading.) Most of it has struck me as amazingly wrongheaded, but I didn’t have a better theory. Now I do.

Romance novels are fundamentally stories about natural law. They inherited this from their remote predecessors: fairy tales, knightly romances, operas, and those classical Greek comedies which always ended in a sacred marriage. (And the Bible and Shakespeare, of course.)

A standard romance always starts in one of two ways.

1. The situation is normal, but lacking something. “And it was very good… But it was not good for the man to be alone.”

2. The situation is bad, and requires drastic action to make things right. A eucatastrophe, even.

Through various vicissitudes, the hero and heroine either meet (and preferably, “meet cute” or in some very romantic way), or they become more closely involved with each other than they were before. The characters either misunderstand each other, are misunderstood and endangered by the whole rest of the world, or have some project or community which alternately draws them together and pulls them apart. Often, this includes pathos or even small doses of tragedy. Ultimately, however, all mysteries are solved, all obstacles and enemies removed or transformed or overcome, and all manner of things are well. The hero and heroine (and perhaps, all the other paired minor characters) join together in the sacred bonds of marriage. “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!'”

Meanwhile, the feeling elicited in the reader is related to the classical catharsis, either through tears, laughter, or both. The reader also feels a deep sense of satisfaction in the rightness of the story and its outcome. Everything is now properly arranged.

However, this fairly standard sort of romance is very difficult to find nowadays. Somewhere along the way, the romance novelist and reader began to be more concerned with romantic feelings being excited in the reader rather than in the characters. There was always something a little troubling about this. But now, the matter has left behind flutters and fluff and gone somewhere more dangerous. Romance novels in most categories now seem to be more about sex scenes than anything else, and those scenes are considerably more explicit and unwholesome. It was sad enough when the hero and heroine simply had disordered ideas about love and sex ; now they’re kinky, too. That problem is not solved by the end.

The thing is, this kinky stuff isn’t just bad for the morals and psyches of the genre’s authors, readers, and publishers. It’s actually turning away from what makes romance work — what gives it power, what satisfies.Who wouldn’t want to live, for a little while, in a world which visibly has all made right? Who wouldn’t want to be an author with the power to reshape things “closer to the heart’s desire”?

And that is why romances have always sold like hotcakes, and been consumed like popcorn. Anything else is just an extra.

But then, said publishers really aren’t publishing romances anymore. It is almost all smut with romance trappings, or the profitable sideline of “chick lit” with hip little covers. Even those few books which are pure quill romance must have a cover marketing them as something else. They are concerned with the right marketing, but not with right and wrong.

I will say that the writing is probably better, on the whole, than it used to be. But then, it has to be, since it foregoes that sensation of making things come out right which trumped mere characterization and grammar. A bad writer with a good story and a trope with power can find readership. A bad writer with a bad story is dead in the water.

There is probably a great deal more to be said on this subject by those readers more versed in the genre than I, as I am truly a very casual romance reader. (Hence, my unhappiness over the current situation. I can’t buy the odd romance on impulse anymore without encountering a great deal of disgusting swill. Even researching matters doesn’t even help, as reviewers have often drunk the Kool-Aid.) I hope those readers will say what they think about my analysis.

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Meanwhile, I have finished my slow reading of Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Sharing Knife: Beguilement, which is not only a good and original fantasy set in a far future, post-BadThings Ohio, but is also a romance in the classical sense. For good or ill.

The good thing is that the main characters are likable, and on the whole, they have the right ideas about love. Lots of interesting and touching things happen. Family and duty are important. There is also an important plot point involving a baby which could be construed as pro-life. (The funny thing is that apparently Bujold is pro-choice in theory, but she keeps being pro-life in her art.) Nothing works out easily, but it is clearly shown that good relationships require time, thought, and work, every day. That’s a wonderful point to make, especially in today’s society. The ending is very satisfying.

Now the bad news. I still have a lot of trouble believing that one character’s society can survive, considering how it’s set up. Bujold nods to the difficulties, but… it’s been going on like this for hundreds of years? No, sorry, not in Margaret Mead’s most fevered dreams. Humans don’t work that way. More to the point, I don’t know of any nomadic societies that do. Sexual morality is usually as strict in a mobile tribe as the rules and customs regarding touchy survival-oriented matters like water, fires, inheritance rights, and tent placement. As for the other analogous situation — whenever members of a military community are allowed to sleep around freely without social or command discouragement, they are sleeping around with outsiders or hangers-on, not members of their own units. Unit cohesion and tribal cohesion trumps all else, for survival’s sake.

There are a fair number of sex scenes, though most aren’t actually hugely explicit. But as is the wont of science fiction and fantasy novels written by highminded authors wishing to justify a little smut, these sex scenes are didactic. Now, this is supposedly done in the service of worldbuilding and characterization, but I have to say I was unconvinced by this motivation. Nah, this kind of stuff is always designed to indoctrinate young women and preach to the choir of the older ones.

To be honest, I didn’t expect Bujold to fall to the temptation. But then, pretty much every major female sf/f author does, sooner or later. (The only male writers I can remember succumbing to the temptation are Heinlein, and…Robinson? Maybe Delany? Oh, yeah, and John Norman, though he’s hardly the most flattering example.) Of course, all sf writers love to make their opinion known on every subject under the sun, and sex is something people have strong opinions about but few venues for discussion. But it seems a bit inattentive for characters to be making grand pronouncements about general principles while they should be paying attention to the task and person at hand, doesn’t it? And it’s never a pronouncement like, “These city folk don’t know how sex should be done — with a garland of wikiwiki plants hung over the bed to drive away evil spirits.” Noooo, it’s always some twentieth century person’s opinion on making whoopie, and it’s probably one that all their little friends agree with, but which makes many of their readers roll their eyes.

At least Bujold doesn’t have birth control herbs in convenient pill form on every table, like Mercedes Lackey. (And really, a lot of these flaws and doubtful bits are so standard to romantic sf/f that they probably count as tropes to many readers.) But man, was that didactic part lame.

Still, the book does have many virtues, and Bujold is a pleasant writer. I’m not sorry I bought the book, and I’ll be recommending it to Bujold enthusiasts who want to keep up, or people who read romances or romantic sf/f. I’m not sure I’d recommend it to first time readers of Bujold who don’t like romances as a starter book, as Chalion is better fantasy and the Vorkosigan stuff is better action, humor, and sf. Also, I think you should keep the younger readers away from a book that claims a woman’s sex life is hampered if she doesn’t play with herself. (Yeah, I’m sure that teenage girls need the encouragement, ’cause they don’t think about sex enough on their own.)

But in general, Beguilement is pleasant and interesting, and will probably appeal strongly to a lot of romance readers. For everyone else, this counts as one of Bujold’s long list of writing experiments — which may or may not pan out, but are always interesting. Just feel free to skip the didactic sex.

Robert Westall

I don’t know anything about the late Robert Westall, and I can’t remember ever seeing his name before, much less one of his novels. But Miyazaki likes him and has just done a cover for one of his books, along with an essay on Westall’s ghostly fantasies. (Since Westall’s well-remembered childhood was back in the late thirties and during the war, you can see why Miyazaki finds him interesting.)

So I guess we’ve got another English author to look for.

Fun with Motivation Posters #2

Reading the Fathers certainly gives you a deeper knowledge of the Bible. For example, until I read Pastoral Care, I had missed out on the profoundly scriptural basis for the ancient tradition of gaming with miniatures.

Fun with Motivation Posters

My anime poster.

A Few Noteworthy Fanfics

The nature of fanfic sites, and following recommendations, is that there are going to be good things that you like surrounded by bad bits you don’t like. But the beauty of recommendations and search engines is that they make it so much easier to find the bits you’ll like.

“An Update on the Holo-Actors’ Strike on Gyanni-Cha”, by Cynthia Martin. Qui-Gon reports to the Jedi Council — Wodehouse style. Also by the same author, “The Code of the Watchers” which isn’t really an R.

And did I mention the Sayers/Wodehouse crossover “Green Ice” by Adina?

Or Malini’s Austen/Wodehouse crossover “Two for Tee”?
The Whole Sort of General Mish Mash, a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by…somebody. Gusty Winds, perhaps.

“Like Iron”, by Anduniel. A short Tolkien fanfic about Fili and Kili’s mother Dis, which starts dry and ends with moisture in the eye.

“Clarke’s Law” by Isis. Because the world needed a Stargate Atlantis crossover with the world’s most popular children’s book series.

And finally, a brand new crossover in progress, bringing together the supreme lord of snark, Dr. Gregory House — and ex-surgeon Dr. Stephen Strange, who in the world of Marvel Comics is Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme!

Product Testing

I recently got some of those ice cream cone-shaped fluorescent lightbulbs that are all the rage. The reason for the shape is that they’re still made out of fluorescent tubing; the tubes have just been made smaller and then coiled to take up less space. On the whole, I’m happy with them. I look forward to a cheaper energy bill next month.

My apartment has one main top light, which leaves the place sorely in need of lamps. However, this isn’t as much of a problem as it once was. I now use a 150 watt (brightness)/42 watt (actual power use) soft white fluorescent. The thing’s fookin’ huge — as long as my hand, as broad as my pinkie — and is more cylindrical than bulb-shaped. Looks like something out of Frankenstein’s lab or the Underground Empire. But it works, it has a friendly glow, and it doesn’t hum at all.

The other two bulbs I bought are 100 watt for brightness. (Much smaller — more like a soft serve ice cream cone with a swirl on top.) On the advice of folks living in Alaska who also find winter light depressing, I bought these in the blueish “daylight” colors.  100 watt is pretty bright, really, but the blue cast makes it look dim until you get used to it. (I wouldn’t use a single bulb as a top light, for instance.) After your eyes get used to it, though, you see that the blue cast really is more like daylight than the reddish cast of soft white lightbulbs. Still, many people find the bluish cast cold, at least immediately under the bulb. (Glass fixtures which cover the bulb may help this, but I haven’t gotten a chance to test that out.) I find that if you combine “soft white” red and “daylight” blue, you get a very invigorating light, but the bluish cast will seem accentuated if you look at the daylight bulb directly. I recommend “daylight” bulbs for indirect lighting, like a lampstand behind your back. Especially if you’re trying to wake up in the morning in the wintertime.

Drawbacks:

– Fluorescent “bulbs” are longer and wider than normal lightbulbs. I mean, yes, they screw into existing fixtures. But there’s no way they’re going to fit under the glass fixtures you already have, unless said fixtures are pretty wide and deep.

– Not all that hot. You’re never going to run an Easy-Bake Oven with these, much less use your lights as an auxiliary heat source in the wintertime.

– They take a moment longer to turn on than regular lightbulbs. This might be important to know if you’re police trying to startle suspects; if you flip the switch and shout, your shout is going to precede the light by a breath.

The next product of interest is those rice in a bag meals. Jambalaya in a plastic bag sounds odd at first, but it’s actually one of the better applications of MRE technology yet. Yummy, and easily available at the dollar store! The good bit is that it’s actually fully cooked, so you don’t have to microwave it long and you can actually cook it in the bag. Eating it out of the bag looks like it would be a messy process, though, so get a plate.

Slim Fast Optima was on sale this week (the drinks, anyway), and since my weight is getting to be a real problem, I tried it. It says it helps control hunger between meals for up to four hours, and I find this to be true. Actually, though they taste okay (I bought “Creamy Milk Chocolate” flavor), I got uninterested in drinking more by the time I got about halfway to three-fourths of the way through the can. But I also found that they worked better by themselves as a meal (breakfast, for instance) than as part of a meal. Since it claims that the balance of fats, proteins and carbs is what keeps you from getting hungry, this is obviously thrown off by eating anything else at the same time.

I tend to get low blood sugar fairly often. I usually don’t realize I’m hungry except by deduction or schedule, because the low blood sugar short circuits hunger pangs and tummy rumbles. However, when I drank a Slim Fast Optima shake for breakfast, I did in fact get hunger pangs just in time for lunch. For the first time in months! Yay! I also didn’t get the brain impulse to eat food in the evenings. (Yes, it’s annoying to feel the need to get food dissociated from the actual fullness of one’s stomach. Try to avoid low blood sugar.)

In fact, the associated diet plan seems to be very good for preventing fits of low blood sugar — if I stay on schedule and don’t work past meals, that is. The only drawback is that, by following the diet all week from Monday on, I ended up with hunger pangs from before lunch to the rest of the afternoon on Friday. I realize this means the diet is working, but boy, that was not pleasant. I mean, I ate a good big lunch from Subway’s, and still the hunger pangs didn’t stop! (The only thing that muted them was some hot coffee.) They stopped after dinner, though.

I also ended up buying a box of some Slim Fast meal bars. The ones I bought claimed to be peanut butter chewy granola, but I couldn’t taste the peanut butter flavor. (To be fair, my nose was a bit stuffed.) Still, there’s nothing wrong with chocolate under crispy rice with oats and barley mixed in, even if it doesn’t seem like granola per se.

My final product test is probably not of interest to the male readers.

Hanes “hipsters” underwear. Now, I don’t know about wearing hipsters in smaller sizes. But in the larger sizes, they are a brilliant engineering feat. Your butt is covered, your front is covered, your sides are covered, and yet the front of the underwear is not pulled so high up as to be uncomfortable. Even bikinis, much less “granny panties”, ride unacceptably high. Hipsters ride comfortably, and cover only what’s needful. They also don’t have thick, uncomfortable elastic waists; rather, the elastic is thin and has plenty of give. This is what bikini underwear always should have been.

That’s it for product testing!

A Little Too Close to Nature, Part 2

A lady I know got bit by a brown recluse spider the other day! I knew they’d spread to this area, but… brrr. Also, brown recluses are apparently given to wandering at night hunting (similar to those big black jobbies we’re used to having in houses), so they can come and find you. Which is what happened to this lady. (So “leave them alone and they won’t hurt you” doesn’t always apply.)

In case it should happen to you — ice packs or other cold compresses to keep the venom from spreading. Also, bring your doctor the smashed or Raid-filled spider body for identification and diagnosis before the venom really starts going and makes it obvious. (Okay, maybe you can capture it, but personally, I’d want that sucker very, very dead.)

For some reason, some bites don’t do the flesh-killing ulcerating thing.OTOH, if someone elderly or frail gets bitten, the necrotizing poison can spread through the whole body and kill important bits, or just plain kill them. So watch out for spiders in dark corners, folks.

A Little Too Close to Nature

My parents and I went out to the cemetery today. After one of our stops, I walked up to the back of the car and saw a very round greyish cat’s behind sticking out from under the back of the car. I bent over and said, “Hi, kitty! Better get out from under the car….”

The “cat” turned around, pulled its tail out from under it, and revealed itself to be a raccoon.

Well, I stepped back automatically, expecting the raccoon to do the same. (Or hiss. Or beg for food. Or scuttle away on its own business.)

But it didn’t. Didn’t move at all. Settled itself back down under the car. Odd.

My dad and mom were coming up to the car, so I warned them to watch out. Mom got into the front seat. We decided that the best procedure was for Dad to pull forward; then I could get into the car without spooking the raccoon or  inadvertently taking it for a ride. Dad did so.

The raccoon sat there. After a moment, it looked around dazedly and realized the car was gone. It got up and shambled disconnectedly across the road, all its legs hitching and dragging.

At this point, the creep-o-meter went off, and we all looked at each other and said, “Rabies. The last stages.” And there has been rabies in our area this year. So we drove back around and told the cemetery staff what we’d seen where, and what we suspected. They looked equally green and said they’d take care of it.

I am soooo glad I didn’t touch it. *shiver*

So the moral of the story is… don’t pet an animal unless you’ve seen its head. (And speak to one from a little farther away than I did.)

(Btw: The parents and I did take our dog Liath to the local Blessing of the Animals on Saturday, and got prayed over ourselves. So if there’s any connection between that and our current non-rabid state… yay for God and St. Francis!)

Pro-Life Blogburst

Just for a moment, let’s suppose it’s not a baby.

So… young women are pressured by society, their relatives, or their significant others — legally! — into purchasing peace or a decent living by having a pound or two of flesh vacuumed out of their bodies from their most private bits of innards. After this payment in blood, said young women will not recover in a hospital; they will be sent home to deal with the aftereffects and post-vacuuming trauma on their own. Alternately, the girls will be given drugs to make them expel these bits into their toilets. For millions of American women, this is not something they will suffer only once.

Obviously, all feminists and liberals are against this barbaric ritual, which is even more invasive than female circumcision. Of course they support crisis pregnancy centers, providing every kind of aid to improve the lives of young women and get them away from these horrendous “procedures”.

You mean, they don’t? They aren’t?

Why not?

(Feminists for Life does care.)

Big Blue Wave organized a pro-life blogburst for Respect Life Sunday, which I found out about via Happy Catholic. It’s a bit late for me to join in, but better late than never!