The Hums of Ceres Wunderkind

11:42 am - Writer's Block: Out of this world

PandaWorld

06:50 pm

Attended a funeral yesterday. The crematorium where it was held was appropriately (I suppose) cold, bleak and wintry with bare trees and a clear cold blue sky. The funeral went as well as these things can, but gained an air of strange magnificence when the coffin was piped into the chapel by a piper in full regalia - kilt and sporran. I hope he had warm underwear.

This morning, woke dreaming that I had died and that my body had been propped up at the bottom of the garden of the house in Watford which was the family home from 1977 until my father's death in 2002. I watched from a short way off as my face started to sag and my body (I was wearing a suit) tipped over; and then my father appeared and cried out "Peter is dead" at the top of his voice. My observing self tried to reassure him that I was all right really.

And then I woke up, otherwise I wouldn't be remembering and recording this dream now.

12:47 pm - Dodged a bullet?

Well, it seems that my brother (who was hauled into hospital last month) may be, if not exactly out of the woods, at least on their borders.

The lump that was obstructing his bowel has turned out to have been malignant, but there are no signs of the cancer having spread into the lymph nodes and they're pretty sure they excised all the affected tissue. So - he's being put on watch and it's been suggested that a short course of relatively minor chemo could help with his long-term prospects.

Fingers crossed!

06:40 pm - That's OK, I guess

Purloined from dolorosa_12

You are The Sun

Happiness, Content, Joy.

The meanings for the Sun are fairly simple and consistent.

Young, healthy, new, fresh. The brain is working, things that were muddled come clear, everything falls into place, and everything seems to go your way.

The Sun is ruled by the Sun, of course. This is the light that comes after the long dark night, Apollo to the Moon's Diana. A positive card, it promises you your day in the sun. Glory, gain, triumph, pleasure, truth, success. As the moon symbolized inspiration from the unconscious, from dreams, this card symbolizes discoveries made fully consciousness and wide awake. You have an understanding and enjoyment of science and math, beautifully constructed music, carefully reasoned philosophy. It is a card of intellect, clarity of mind, and feelings of youthful energy.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

06:56 pm - SJA

Oh, that was great.

Especially the bum control for Mr Serf and Rani to Clyde:

'We'll do it my way. We'll take precautions.'

11:20 am - The End of Sarah Jane

So, next Monday and Tuesday will bring the last of the Sarah Jane Adventures.

It will be a sad moment when the final credits roll. Watching this last half-season has been a mixed experience. The contrast between the knowledge that Elisabeth Sladen was dying as she made it and her astonishing defiance of that knowledge has made it hard to watch. How could she have been so vibrant, so full of life and energy, and yet so unwell? Doctor Theatre indeed.

But... I hope that when the end comes, it is handled with dignity and, especially, optimism. After all, the whole show has been about optimism. Please, please, please, don't make us sit through this:


BANNERMAN ROAD EXTERIOR. Clyde and Rani enter Sarah Jane's house. It is unexpectedly quiet.

Clyde: That's odd.
Rani: It's never this quiet. Something's wrong.

They go upstairs to the attic. All is still.

Clyde: Sarah Jane?
Rani: Sarah Jane, where are you?

They look around. None of the usual signs of SJ's occupation are there. The attic is unusually tidy. Rani spots something:

Rani: Look Clyde! K9's door! It's open!
Clyde: K9? K9?
Rani: I don't understand. Where can he be? She turns. Mister Smith! I need you!

There is no fanfare, no hiss of steam. Instead, a figure emerges from the shadows. It is Luke. Sky follows and takes his hand. Both look stricken.

Luke: It's no good calling for him. He's gone. They've all gone.
Sky: Our mother's gone. She weeps.
Clyde: But where? Where can they have gone?
Luke: Listen...

We hear the sound of the TARDIS. It recedes into the farthest reaches of Time and Space and the children are left with nothing but silence. Group hug.

Please, please, please don't go there, CBBC. Leave it to the fic writers....

04:31 pm - THE BOY now only 99c

The subject line says it all. You can now purchase my story collection The Boy and other tales of the supernatural for the bargain price of 99c (86p in the UK, not sure how many Euro cents in the Eurozone).

Go on - you know you want it!

The Boy at Amazon

02:30 pm - Embassytown

Just finished China Miéville's Embassytown. Oh China, China, you are such a frustrating writer!

To start off - Embassytown is much better than Miéville's last novel, Kraken, which was China-by-numbers and read like an old second draft dusted down, polished up and sent to the press. That it's not as good as The City And The City is no surprise. That novel was so absolutely right - a brilliant idea beautifully realised - that I wonder if  Miéville will ever top it.

Embassytown starts very well. It reads like a  homage to 70's Le Guin, Tiptree or Wolfe, with a bit of Cordwainer Smith thrown in. (Le Guin has written a very positive review - you can find it here). The world-building is immaculate and entertaining if occasionally a little overdone. The natives of the world of  Arieka - the Host who cannot lie - are invoked nicely, as are the Ambassadors who speak to them.

Ah yes, speaking. All this world-building is there - and mostly in its right place - to underpin the story, which is about language. And herein lies the problem and the frustration. Early on, the narrator - the immer Avice - becomes a living simile. That's a neat idea, although the simile she becomes is repeated and repeated over and over again until you tire of it. But the resolution of the story depends on a development that is so blindingly obvious and so banal that you've probably already worked it out from reading this review; and it seems rather a let-down to navigate 400 pages - however well-written and inventive - to reach a conclusion that I, for one, dismissed in advance as being unlikely because it was so, well, blindingly obvious and banal.

Arghh! There's so much here to love, but it's all thrown away in the end. 

10:02 am - Tenth Anniversary

Ten years ago today I wrote my first HDM fic and posted it to fanfiction.net. It was called The History Tutorand you can find it here.

A decade has passed. Where is the original story's rebellious heroine now?




Tenth Anniversary
( Read more... )

12:17 pm - Tenth Anniversary now available on Amazon Kindle