A loss for words

Once More Unto The Breach

2011-10-07T12:50:00.004+09:00

After a bit of a hiatus, I remembered that I had a blog here. I've got two others that I remembered: my shaving/honing blog at www.easternsmooth.com/blog and my Japanese blog at http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/orionsbowone, but this one...

I'm not sure what it's for anymore. It used to be for stories and reviews, and I guess it still is. But recently, I think I just need something to keep my brain moving. I'm aging, and things are slowing down under my thinning hair, and I need to nip that crap in the bud.

One way I'm trying to do that is I've started working on copyediting skills. Copyediting, you say? Whyever would you do that?

Well, I reply, think about it. It involves careful reading and detailed consideration of every word, punctuation mark, sentence and paragraph of a text. It's not just looking at grammar and spelling mistakes, it's looking at logical connection and arrangement, and tweaking things to work better. It is, to be honest, my favorite part of the job I already do (as a Business English teacher, I spend a lot of time correcting and rewriting reports and presentations) so if I can turn that into some kind of sharpened skill, and perhaps even get some money for it, why not?

And thus I return to this blog, as a way to limber up my word-brain, blow the dust out of the linguistic pipes a bit and see if I can't mix more metaphors to describe the fact that I'm going to spend more times with words for words' sake.

So hello again, and let's see if we can't make this a bit more fruitful, ok?

Death Kappa Comes In The Night!

2011-07-06T11:07:00.000+09:00

I love this movie...

Japanese cinema suffers from much of the same sequel-obsession and lack of originality that plagues Hollywood, but at times there seems to be a bit more willingness to take risks than you see in the big-budget, big-stakes movies coming out of the US. Takashi Miike, for example, is one of Japan's most famous film makers and director of highly acclaimed dramas like Thirteen Assassins or Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai, family friendly kid movies like The Great Yokai War et al. At the same time, he makes some of the most controversial, ultra-violent and at times bizarre films in Japan. His more risque' work does nothing to interfere with his acceptance as a mainstream filmmaker, and he is not alone in this.

So despite the boring sameness of most films in Japan, there is also a healthy dose of well-budgeted films that are, frankly, out there. This makes me very happy--especially as it led to the creation and relatively healthy support of Death Kappa.

This movie, OH this movie. I love it. It's freaking insane, but I love it.

I guess a brief synopsis is in order, but I'm not sure how much good it will do in conveying how wonderful I think it is.

So here's the story. We start with a young woman, Kanako, trudging back into her small mountain home-town.

We are given to understand that she is coming home from Tokyo, where she had failed as an "Idol," one of the numerous pop singing, bikini clad cuties that are plastered all over Japanese media. She is coming to live with her grandmother, who raised her, but as she approaches the kindly old Kimono-clad woman, a carload of drunken, stupid "City kids" run her over in their convertible.

This is played for laughs.

As the old woman dies in the her granddaughter's arms, her last words are an order to look after the family "kappa shrine."

At this point, we see a short interstitial scene where a Spanish man explains what a Kappa is in an expansive, professorial manner.

This is deadly serious.

We cut to...later?...The same day? I have no idea, but the young woman has taken over her duties at the family shrine, praying and offering cucumbers to the kappa (Kappa love cucumbers. Really.). But when she comes back from her Kappa feeding, she finds two unidentified boys (one of whom appears to be about 10, the other is...25? 30?, but dressed as a child.) have come into the shrine and are listening to a cassette of the only album she released as an Idol. For some reason, this music attracts a real life Kappa, and he comes into the yard to dance to the bubbly pop song. At which point, the three young people then begin cavorting with the hideous monster as the pop song plays...and then it all turns into a Karaoke style music video for the song, complete with lyrics and shots of Kanako in cute outfits. Crying.

I wish I had a video of this. Youtube failed me...it really must be seen to be believed. A cute young Japanese girl running through the surf and splashing water with a man in a rubber Kappa suit, singing lyrics that translate to something like "Today is today, tomorrow is tomorrow, lucky happy! Run by the beach, I'm wearing panties, smiling face, blood spills! Lucky, happy!"

The story progresses into a mystery/horror subplot, where someone is trying to capture the kappa and kidnap the stupid teens who killed Grandma, and eventually are revealed to be a shady group with a sinister plot to create super soldiers using the Kappa. The movie then morphs into a martial arts action flick as Kanako and the Kappa fight their way through these soldiers and end their nefarious scheme. Then, through a bizarre plot device, the movie changes YET AGAIN.

The final part of the film is a "Dai Kaijuu" type man-in-a-rubber-suit giant monster movie. For some reason, the Kappa has become a huge Godzilla-type monster, and starts taking down Tokyo. From there, it follows the usual pattern with the military attacking and failing, the arrival of a new monster and a prolonged battle that eventually becomes a pro-wrestling match in rubber monster suits.

So why do I love this movie? Because it is a quite a successful lampoon of a huge swath of popular movie tropes. We have the pastoral romance of the quiet mountain town and old fashioned values as refuge from the depredations of the big city, destroyed by the intrusion of modernity. We have spy movie/action tropes of secret organizations with sinister plans and the secret powers of our heroes. We have digs at vacuous pop music and over-the-top monster movies and even at horror movie audiences!

The

The best part of all, I think, as that this movie was sold and advertised as a straight horror/monster flick, and it is, beyond any shadow of a doubt, a comedy. Not even a black comedy...there is very little of what you'd call "graphic violence" (any fight or death scenes are filmed without any attempts to hide the fact that the victims are dummies) and that video...wow. The reviews are all pretty bad, and I think part of the reason is this marketing. People seemed to go in expecting a traditional Giant Monster movie, and it's not that at all. I watched it entirely by accident, attracted by the name on TV, and sat in open mouthed amazement for the whole thing--no expectations led to pure enjoyment, I reckon. It really is quite clever, and the fact of its existence makes me hopeful for Japan's entertainment future.

True Stories--Berlin

2011-06-23T13:41:00.001+09:00

This really happened. I think.

(Warning: Contains some pretty harsh imagery of war. Read responsibly. I'm serious.)

It was autumn, I think, or early winter. Cold, but not biting, no snow as such. I was in Berlin for reasons that tuned out to be a pretense for mere aimless wandering, but the pretense allowed me a free public transit pass so I spent a lot of time on the U-Bahn and S-Bahn, spinning around the city and watching the city's slow motion fall into bankruptcy and despair.

As I said, it was autumn, I think, or early winter. I had had a Kebab lunch, and was nursing a bottle of the cheapest beer I could find (which, in Berlin in the early 2000's, was pretty darned cheap), and I made my way down into the Friedrichstrasse U-Bahn station. It was a weekday, around noon, so the crowd was mostly business people on long European lunch breaks. I leaned against a concrete bolster, enjoying the feeling of the city around me, and I noticed him coming.

He was older, probably in his 60s. His clothes were shabby but showed signs of care, and his empty left sleeve was rolled up and pinned just above where his elbow would have been. He was walking down the rows of waiting passengers with a cup, bold and unashamed of his begging. The passengers mostly ignored him, but a few euro coins did make their way into that cup. As he approached, I fished in my pocket and found a 2 Euro piece. As I dropped it in his cup I said some little phrase, good luck or the like, and he stopped.

"You're not German." he said.

"Ummm...no. I'm not." I said. I was hesitant to say I was American, it was not a popular time to be one in Europe, what with two recent invasions under our belt and a particularly un-European President at the helm.

"You American?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Yes...is that ok?" I was getting a little nervous.

He stuck the cup under the stump of his left arm and dug into it. "I don't take your money." he said, this time in heavily accented English.

"What? Why? I'm sorry..." I said. This was a first for me, and I was completely unsure what was going on.

"Listen, I tell you something," he said, pushing a 2 Euro coin at me. "I'm German, but I'm Polish. You understand? I'm from Breslau."

I understood a little. Breslau was the German name of what is now the Polish city of Wrocław. It was the site of a particularly hard fight on the Eastern Front, and one of the last defenses between the Soviet army and Berlin. After the war, and the division of Germany among the Eastern and Western powers, Breslau was given to the Soviets who made it part of Poland, expelling the German residents and relocating them to the DDR.

"I born there," he continued. "My father there, my mother there. In the war, I was a little boy. We fought the Russians." at the word, he spit down at the railroad tracks. "Three months we fought. And we knew we lose, you know? No way to win. But we hated the Russians. They animals. Animals. So finally, we pray. Every day. We pray. You know why we pray? We pray to God in heaven that the Americans come and take our city before the Russians take our city. Because they animals."

I stood and stared, unsure how to react.

"But the Americans didn't come. And the bastards in the army, they give up. Give us to the Russians." His face was starting to darken, now. His right hand trembled, the coins clinking in his cup. He fell into German again. "The damned Russians. They had won, but still they killed us. They shot the men, the older boys. They raped the women. My mother, they raped my mother and my sister. I tried to stop the men who attacked them, but I was a boy. They laughed at me. They did this," he waved the stump of his arm at me. "They broke my arm, shattered it with the butt of a gun. The doctors had to take it off."

Tears started to run down his face then, and his eyes didn't even seem to see me. He was just talking to himself now, I thought, but I listened. I couldn't not listen.

"They did terrible things, I saw such terrible things. So many people, murdered. Not dying in battle, murdered in the streets. Women, children. Babies! They took babies and crushed their skulls, and they laughed!"

He stopped speaking. I think he couldn't speak, actually, his throat worked and his breath was loud and gasping. Finally he looked up at me, seeing me instead of the horrors inside his own head.

"Why didn't the Americans come? I wish they had come. The Americans weren't animals." he said. And he turned and walked away.

Westward Ho

2011-04-27T23:23:00.000+09:00

Last weekend we took another trek across the island of Honshu to the Sanin coast.

I loved this drive. We went through the mountains, stopping at scenic outlooks and enjoying the quiet, the wind in the trees and the streams wending through valleys and around boulders, and not the sound of a car for 20 or 30 minutes. It's lovely.

Even more wonderfully, it's like going a month back in time when you get up into the mountains: the weather is cool and brisk, and the cherry blossoms are just breaking into bloom and painting the riversides pink and white.

Joyous.

The end of this particular trip took us to Tottori prefecture, to a town called Sakai Minato. My wife's little brother is at the Japanese Self Defense Force Airforce base there, and we went to see his workplace and meet some of his colleagues. He's not got a glamorous job like pilot, he's a supply clerk, but he still plays an important role, and indeed he was deployed recently to help provide humanitarian aid and open supply lines in the Earthquake and Tsunami zones in Northeastern Japan.

So we're proud of him, and it was a real pleasure to see what he's been doing--and getting to tour a big C-1 cargo plane.

Afterward, we went to a local famous landmark--Mizuki Shigeru Road. Mizuki Shigeru is a rather famous man in Japan, he's a Manga artist who created an enormously popular series, GeGeGe no Kitarou. His art style is interesting, and he's got an amazing knowledge of Japanese monsters, spirits and beasties--Yokai. His stories are populated with them, and his hometown of Minato Sakai eventually decided to honor him by renaming a street after him, and installing statues of his most famous characters all along the street.

The wife is a huge fan of his, so we had to go see--and it was actually a lot of fun.

On the way home, we stopped off to get some locally famous hand-made soba, which was incredibly good, and slowly picked our way back across the mountains to the sunny, noisy Sanyo coast.

It's a great country to live in.

Brother, Can you Spare Five Cents a Word?

2011-04-13T15:07:00.000+09:00

I've been writing things for a long time.
Anyone know how I can get some money out of it?

I've got a good job, my wife and I make enough to live pretty darned comfortably, but every once in a while I think--the time I put into (sometimes sporadically) maintaining three blogs, writing articles for someone else's SF blog and making guides to honing and using straight razors, all for free just might be time I could use to make a little money...but still do the same thing.

I guess I should look into freelance writing work, but honestly--what kind of market would I be looking at? Who publishes stories about living in small-town Japan, or using traditional techniques to sharpen straight razors, or all the other random things I write about?

If anyone knows, I'm all ears. Or eyes, I guess, as you'd be posting the info here. But anyway, I think I should look into this freelance writing thing, my personal spending could really benefit from it.

How About Some Perspective?

2011-03-15T23:01:00.004+09:00

I'm so angry at so many people right now.

I'm not going to get into it in detail, but it seems like this disaster (every disaster?) is increasingly becoming an opportunity for every scaremonger with a political agenda to come out of their holes and exploit everyone's natural fear for their own ends.

Right now, it's the reactors. The reactor situation in Fukushima is undoubtedly bad. It could become really, REALLY bad. But it is not at all the world-damaging Chernobyl disaster that all the anti-nuclear freaks say it is. Nor, however, is it the simple, peaceful, nothing-to-worry-about-here cakewalk that the pro-nuclear freaks say it is. People are going to have serious problems because of this. Some people may get sick, some might die, people are certainly going to lose their homes.

But there is no harmful radiation in Tokyo, no nuclear fallout spreading across the globe. The radiation levels at the gate to the power plant (.4mSv) are less than a 4th of the natural background radiation you would get living in Denver for a year (1.8mSv).

Not a place you want to take a nap, not, but for 99% of us it's NOT DANGEROUS. Right now. The brave men and women trying to fix this are, of course, in another situation, and my heart and thoughts go out to them. But for most of us, there is no danger at all.

Does that mean we shouldn't be watching? Of course not. The situation could get worse. But that is always the case, isn't it? So watch, take precautions, but for pete's sake...Don't let the idiot media and the agenda-filled grandstanders cloud your judgment.

But the worst part? The really really bad part? All the time they spend telling you how awful the reactor situation is is time taken away from the true problem in Japan. At least 10,000 people, men, women, children. Gone. Some never to be recovered, to be given their final rest where their families can tend to their graves.

Thousands more...Millions? Homeless, with nothing at all to their names now. Homes, cars, jobs, everything--gone. NOW.

So let the technicians and the emergency workers take care of the completely unmeasurable risk of radiation coming from Fukushima. Because tonight, in Miyagi, it's going to snow. There aren't any more stocked grocery stores. There's no electricity to heat, no water to drink, no food to eat.

What sounds like the bigger problem to you?

Did I mention you can donate to the Red Cross and help those people?

Some Peace Among The Madness

2011-03-13T19:26:00.006+09:00

I had to take a day off from the "Cry every time I pass a TV" routine I've been in since Friday afternoon, so that's what the wife and I did.

I know that while people in the north of Japan are still suffering, are still searching desperately for their loved ones and mourning their dead (a list which has surpassed 10,000 souls), it is pure selfishness to want to stop thinking about it. I, who have the luxury of being able to do just that, should not. But sometimes people are selfish. I know I certainly am.

Indeed, apart from cash donations (Have you? Can you? Please do, if you can: How To Help.) I don't really know what at all I can do. My tears and my frustration certainly aren't helping anyone, so I figure it's about time to stop that. I guess it's thin justification, but that's all I've got.

And so today, my wife and I got out of the house into the warm March sunshine, and enjoyed as much of our time together as we could.

We left our home in Hikari and drove toward the center of Yamaguchi prefecture, to a place called Akiyoshidai. The side of Japan on which we live, the one facing the Pacific, is known as the "Sanyo Coast", and is the more heavily populated and industrialized side of Japan. The other side is called the "Sanin Coast" and is cleaner, quieter and more relaxed. The two coasts are separated by the mountains that make up the majority of Honshu's landmass.

Driving into these mountains from the factory-filled Sanyo coast is a joy. The bamboo and pine covered slopes rise gently, and hide little villages lining streams and rivers running clean and clear. On a day like today, with not a cloud in the sky and the winter chill all but gone, they were perfect.

The drive was about 2 hours, as we made it intentionally long. Akiyoshi is a famous place here in Yamaguchi. It's a small town, surrounded by unusual mineralogical formations. There are three large, rather lovely caves in the area, as well as our desination today: Akiyoshidai.

Akiyoshidai is a valley, or series of hills, or a mountain...I'm not really sure. But it's covered with these rather striking rock outcroppings called "karst". Apparently they're rare, these huge chunks of stone emerging from the soil like this. I'm not sure that they are enough of a draw to become a real tourist attraction, but apparently enough people come to warrant a small gift shop and restaurant.

And people were there. We weren't the only ones who felt the need to get out and away from the constant rush of pain coming through the wires. Here they are, laughing and taking pictures and eating soft-serve. They way it's supposed to be.

And here I get the real story about today.

One of the main activities, simple as it is, at Akiyoshidai, is eating Summer Mikan Soft-serve. Summer Mikan is a type of small orange, similar to a Clementine or Mandarin, that is particularly famous in Yamaguchi. And Akiyoshi, being a Yamaguchi landmark, makes a big deal out of this by pushing the Soft Serve Ice Cream they make with it. So we decided to get some, just to fit in.

There are two shops selling Yamaguchi Summer Mikan Soft-serve at Akiyoshidai. One is right on the way in, and is marked by a mannequin in a China dress. We passed this one because the line was very long--it's right in the entrance, and everyone has to pass by it so it gets all the foot traffic. The other is further up the hill, attached to the restaurant and a little out of the way. This place had a shorter line, and we got our Ice Cream there. I got the Mikan, of course, but my wife got Strawberry--her reasoning was, there's no reason for us to get the same flavor, we can share.

So we got our ice cream, and made our way back toward the car. On the way, we decided to sit in the sun and eat, so we stopped at a nice warm bench. We didn't pay attention, however, to the fact that we were right in front of the other Ice Cream shop.

The crowd had dispersed, and as we sat eating, the little old woman manning the counter (well into her 70s, I think) called out to my wife and motioned her over. We were both a bit surprised, but when she brought out a small spoon, we thought that she was just offering one to my wife. So she went over, and then another gesture beckoned me over as well.

When my wife reached the counter, instead of offering her the spoon the woman held out a hand for her cone and started gently berating her. "What are you eating? Strawberry!? This is Akiyoshi! You have to eat Mikan!" And taking my wife's cone, replaced the half-eaten strawberry with a big dab of Mikan ice cream. Then she took my cone. "Oh, this is terrible. You shouldn't buy this crap, here let me..." And taking the spoon from before, she scooped out most of my ice cream and refilled the cone with her own Mikan soft serve.

(Photo from wikitravel here. That's definitely the stuff, that's the cone she uses.)

"That place up there, it's terrible. They just add flavoring to the vanilla to make their Mikan and Strawberry. We make it all from scratch, and use real fruit. Even our vanilla is better!" With that, she took my wife's cone again. "Here, try the vanilla." she said, and topped my wife's cone with said vanilla, making a triple cone of strawberry remnants, mikan and vanilla. When we tried to pay her, she waved us off and said "What? No, no, if you try to pay I'll just get angry. I want you to have the good stuff!" So in lieu of payment, we thanked her and asked to shake her hand--a big thing in Japan. She laughed, embarrassed, and said "Oh no, not this wrinkled old thing!" My wife shook her head and said "Your hand is beautiful" and we shook it.

Bowing and thanking her again, we backed away.

As we took our leave, another crowd of people had gathered behind us, and we overheard one young woman saying "Oh, I want a triple like her!" We rushed away before we were forced to explain our mistake.

In the car, we finally ate our new Ice Cream. And you know what? That old woman was right...Of course, the line wasn't just because of the foot traffic. Hers was so much better, with fresh fruity flavors and rich, natural vanilla.

And, of course, the kindness with which it was given made it all the sweeter.

Earthquake UPDATE

2011-03-11T17:51:00.002+09:00

Now that things have gotten a little calmer, I just want to update.

We here in Yamaguchi are TOTALLY SAFE. Our friends and family are all accounted for, and there wasn't even a shake here, so please don't worry.

If you would like to do something for all the families who have lost so much, I would encourage you to give to the Red Cross.

Other than that, all we can do is hope that the worst is over, and give our support to those who are really in need of it.

Take care of each other.

A Sake Is Born

2011-03-06T21:42:00.018+09:00

Last weekend we had the good luck to get a tour of a local sake brewery, on a day when it's normally closed, because of an acquaintance.

I've not been a big fan of Sake so far. It's got its own peculiarities, and I'll be honest-I feel like so far, I've not had much good stuff.

Until last weekend...

Yamagata Sakagura was founded in Shunan city 130 years ago by the great-grandfather of the current owner. That current owner, Toshiro Yamagata, has expanded from just owning a single brewery, to heading a multinational Sake distribution firm with offices in New York, LA, and Korea. But he still found the time to take us through his brewery on his day off...

If you want details about the general process of making Sake, you could do worse than visiting the website of the Japan Sake Brewer's Association.

Our tour followed this chart, basically.

We started at the beginning, with rice.

When sake is made, the rice is first polished. It starts with it's brown, protein rich hull, but it polished down to the white, starchy core. The amount of polishing has a direct effect on the flavor and price of a sake.

(From the Japan Sake Brewer's Association Website)

Ginjoshu-Sake made using white rice which has been milled so that 60% or less of the grain remains. It also contains rice koji and water, and may contain all of these ingredients plus brewing alcohol. It is characterized by a fruity, somewhat floral bouquet and a clear, crisp flavor. If the rice is polished down to 50% or less, the sake is called Dai-ginjoshu.

Here is an example of the rice. The top row, of course, is unpolished brown rice. The bottom row is polished--Left side is polished 50%, the middle is down to 35%, the right is down to 70%. The middle rice takes 70 hours of polishing to reach its tiny size, and the sake it produces is a light, sweet one with an amazing balance of flavor (to my unsophisticated palate) and is, to me, the most drinkable sake I've ever tried.

It's also the priciest. Yamagata's "Moriko Chou-Toku Sen Dai Ginjoshu", Or "Moriko Extra-special Select Dai-Ginjoshu" runs about $30 for a 720ml bottle. But apparently, in the states, it runs about $100.

We were treated to this sake, not only freshly tapped from the tank but in its "Genshu" state, meaning that it was undiluted for bottling. Before sake is bottled for selling, it is often cut with water to bring the alcohol level to 14-17%. Before bottling, as Genshu, it's usually 20-22%.

It do have a kick, but it is just lovely...and the owner was generous enough to give us bottles of it to take home.

So here are some pics of the brewery...

The polished rice, ready for washing and watering.

After it's washed, it's steamed soft and then cooled to 40 degrees C, at which point the Koji, a microbe that turns the rice starch into sugar, is added. Then water and yeast, which turns the sugars into alcohol, are added, and in about 24 days you have sake.

This is a tank of starter--rice, Koji and yeast.

These tanks are brewing away, and smell fantastic.

We were allowed to taste sake in process, this one was about 18 days in. The alcohol content was about 14%. It was a sweet, full flavor, with lots of rice flavor and a touch of carbonation. Quite drinkable, too.

After fermentation is done, the sake is pumped to this big filter press, where the rice solids, or lees, are filtered and pressed.

The lees make a foodstuff called "Pressed Sake Cake" or Kasu. This is used in soups or to make a sweet, very low-alcohol festival drink called Amazake.

Soft kasu.

Hard kasu. It tasted about like you would expect--starchy and slightly sweet, with some alcohol bite. Not bad at all...

After pressing, the sake is lightly filtered again, and then pasteurized at low heat (about 60 C) to kill any bacteria that might spoil the sake.

Then it's stored for a few days to settle down a bit, and bottled.

These tanks hold 46,000 liters, or about 15,000 gallons. There were ten of them, but not all were full.

It was, in all, a heck of a tour, and the owner was so friendly and enjoyable to talk to that I almost want to go back next weekend.

The free sake didn't hurt, either.

Lies They Told Me About Japan

2011-03-02T22:20:00.007+09:00

It ain't what they said it was.

I did a lot of research before I came to Japan, both to avoid culture shock (I had some serious problems adjusting to life in Germany the first time I went) and out of pure old curiosity. I wanted to know what I was getting into, you see.

I learned all kinds of things. For example, I learned that the Japanese are unemotional, lacking in affection and indeed, there was no word for the Western concept of "love" in the language (I swear this is true--one of my first Japanese language learning books included this bit of wisdom).

I learned that Japan was a land of ineffable subtlety and that communication in Japanese is an exercise in unspoken cues, creating an almost telepathic effect. That the language is obscure and almost impenetrable to outsiders because of its intense level of "contextualization."

I learned, basically, that Japan is as alien a place to Americans as Mars would be.

It was all crap, of course.

The first thing I noticed when I got here was how...normal..everything seemed. Oh, to be sure, there are real differences between American/European cultures, the most familiar to me, and Japanese. Food and manners, customs and clothes are indeed not the same.

(This video will teach you everything you need to know about Japan...)

But...I didn't see any mystical displays of "Japanese-only" communication, at least no more than I saw at home between people vying for seats at a cafe. People were smiling and laughing, sharing food and talking animatedly in the streets and in the shopping malls. Sure, the buses and trains are quiet--but that's a matter of manners, more than anything.

In conversation, people looked me in the eye--unless they were intimidated by me, the big loud foreigner who didn't speak their language. But they laughed at my clumsy jokes, and appreciated my attempts at manners. There was none of the dull, robotic lack of emotion I had been led to expect. (Indeed, a student of mine recently told me "They keep saying on TV that Japanese people don't look at each other when they speak...but I don't think it's true." He's Japanese. And he's right. They say stuff like that on TV here all the time, looking at each other when they say it.)

Nor was the language as alien as I had been told. The writing system is a trial, absolutely, the three different character sets require work, and Kanji require IMMENSE effort. But these weird rules, the vague grammar and unclear sentences, the mysterious lack of subjects, and all the little things that supposedly make Japanese an impossible language for blunt Americans--not there. It's a language, with relationships with context and social norms indeed, but nothing at all difficult, even for we unsubtle Americans.

On the contrary, I have found that communication in Japanese is often overly detailed, direct and lacking in any kind of vagueness. Sure, once you've said "Taro has a big car." 太郎が大きい車を持っている。You don't don't have to say "The car is a Honda," all you have to say "Is Honda." ホンダです。　But what kind of idiot wouldn't understand that in the second sentence, we're talking about a car, not Taro? A BIG idiot, that's what kind.

But in many cases, every conceivable detail is laid out as clearly as possible, ostensibly to avoid confusion.

(This is all very important in the case of apologies, of course)

Whenever you start to speak publicly, you begin by saying 発表します (Happyou shimasu). "I announce." Whenever you end a report or email, you end by writing 以上です。(Ijyou desu.) "The end." You ALWAYS write that, otherwise it's not finished. Japanese is full of declarative sentences telling people what you are about to do, or what you have just done...which, of course, they should already know.

I've already talked about books in Japan which suffer from this over-explanation malady.

My favorite example comes from movies--when Western movies are shown on TV here, as soon as a character appears in a movie, a caption appears giving the character's name and the name of the actor portraying it...even if the character hasn't been introduced in the story yet. So when watching Transformers, as soon as that yellow car shows up, a little caption appears saying "Bumblebee." None of the characters in the story knew that information, but whoever was putting these on TV felt that the audience really needed to know it as soon as possible.

It's direct, clear and without room for miscommunication.

So where did this come from, this idea that Japanese people communicate through mysterious ESP powers? My theory is this.

For many years, the vast majority of communication between Japanese and Americans/Westerners was in a formal context, business negotiations or the like. IN a formal context, emotional expression and the like are, in fact, rare in Japan. It's a formal atmosphere, and thus a quiet one. This may have led to the "emotionless" stereotype. When Japanese people listen in a meeting, they may in fact close their eyes, or look down at their desk, instead of at the speaker--as a sign of respect, showing "I'm listening with my ears, not my eyes." Thus, there's not a lot of eye contact. And in business meetings, the Japanese side has already made its decisions and everyone is already in agreement--because of a habit called "nemawashi."

"Nemawashi" literally means "digging around the root of a tree" but in practical terms, what this means is that before a business meeting, the various members discuss the points of the meeting privately, face to face, building consensus through personal contact. The actual meeting is therefore just a performance, a public demonstration of the privately fixed conversations--so to an outsider, it seems as if all the members magically understand each other, without even talking. Roles are set, so that an underling knows what to say when his boss nods at him, or when he cocks an eyebrow he knows he should stop speaking...he's been prepared.

So there is no mystery, just preparation, timing, and context.

It turns out, of course, that Japanese people are JUST PEOPLE. They aren't magical alien beings. They aren't soulless automatons. Just people, with all the failings and weaknesses, and occasional bouts of generosity and warmth, that other people are prone to.

Funny how that works, innit?

A New Project, and A New Story

2011-02-11T21:06:00.001+09:00

I'm a writer in the sense that I write stuff. I have to. I just...do.

I don't do it for money or for recognition, it's just the way I express myself. But of course, it's always more fun when people read what you write, and a little extra cash never hurt anyone. I've submitted stories to magazines, but I keep getting rejections--not bad ones, actually, they've always been "Your story is good but it's not quite right for our magazine" or something of the sort.

So I figured hey-why not go out on my own? If I can get a few people reading, it'll be fun and I won't have to fear rejection so much.

So I've started to post previews of my stories on a special blog I keep reserved for things in my life that don't revolve around steel and stones. And for those who want to read more, I've put up a "Pay what you can" PayPal button, where you can buy the whole story for whatever you think is fair. If you don't think it's worth money, then I'd be happy to send it for free.

So take a look at my first story, an epic fantasy short called Dueling Ground. Spread it around, tell people who might like fantasy, and if you like the story then I wouldn't mind if you kicked a buck or two into the bucket.

Thanks!

Christmas Vacation (Part 1--Picture heavy)

2011-01-09T22:53:00.016+09:00

Me and the wife went to Bali.

The wife decided she wanted to try a Bali spa, and the price for the trip was right so we went. We spent 5 days, and one day in Singapore. It was fantastic.

We got a whole Villa, with a private pool and a maid (MAID!).

It was a two bedroom house with marble floors, full kitchen, and geckos.

We saw tons of amazing things. The first day, we hired a guide and a car to take us all over the island.

Our guide, named Made Buddha Dharma but called Bud-chan, was fluent in Japanese; tourism is the #1 industry in Bali, and the Japanese are the biggest market.

Bud-chan is showing us some 2000 year old terraced rice fields. Off camera, some adorable little girls are trying to sell my wife postcards and pencils. It's lucky they targeted T, because I would not have been able to say no. ADORABLE they were.

They also spoke Japanese.

We had lunch at this buffet restaurant overlooking a volcanic valley. To the right is Lake Batur, which wraps around Mt. Batur, Bali's most active volcano. It was too cloudy to get a good view, but still a stunning overlook for a so-so lunch.

In the same region as Batur, known as Kintamani, we went to a Coffee and Cocoa plantation where we tried fresh roasted and ground coffee and natural cocoa, as well as got terrified by a pair of enormous, and very relaxed, Flying Foxes.

The Balinese drink their coffee in a different way: they grind the beans to a very fine powder, then put the powder directly in a cup, add hot water, and drink it all. The powder makes coffee instantly, but doesn't dissolve--you're left with a thick "mud" of coffee powder at the bottom of your cup, which is quite potent. I love it, my wife not so much.

As we drank we looked over this:

Not bad.

They also make the famous "Kopi Luwak", or "Civet Cat Coffee" in Bali. Here's the cat, or "Lowak", in question:

Pretty cute! But not, perhaps, cute enough to warrant the drinking of it's feces...(Yes, I tried it. It was a very mellow, rich coffee. Excellent, but not worth the exorbitant price, in my opinion.)

One of the things that really struck me about Bali was the statuary. It's everywhere. Every conceivable surface hosts an intricately carved statue--houses, shops, and of course temples are all covered in carvings. The stone carving business is a huge one, too...the statues are all made of a very very soft stone, so they wear away quickly in the tropical Bali weather.

Bali is 95% Hindu, and the population is very devout.

Offerings like these baskets are made 3 times a day, and placed in front of Holy statues and doors...so they are everywhere, all the time.

Bud-chan took us to a famous Temple, Tampak Sirta, where there are holy springs filling pools where worshippers bathe and pray. We were there for a holy day, so the pools were filled with worshippers. It was an amazing site, people lined up in the blue waters floating with flowers, the smell of incense in the air. I felt a real intruder, but Bud-chan insisted it was fine.

These are the springs, the water is fed from here to the pools below.

Outside the temple.

Bud-chan insisted we get into this prayer group. I was quite embarrassed. T decided to join in (she's not crazy about her face on the internet, so I whited it out). I'm wearing a sarong because shorts are not allowed in the temple.

All in all, a very impressive trip.

And only our first day!

Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture...(Pic heavy)

2010-11-29T21:18:00.017+09:00

Last week my wife and I took a day trip to the next island over, Shikoku, and visited the main city in Ehime prefecture, Matsuyama. It was LOVELY.

We hopped the ferry out of Yanai, Yamaguchi-ken, and man was I excited. The weather was perfect, the ocean smooth and the ride so much fun.

I'm on a boat, M**********R, don't you ever forget!

The Seto Inland sea...

When we arrived in Matsuyama, we had a fantastic lunch at the ANA hotel then went up to Bansuiso, a preserved villa that was built in the 1920's by Hisamatsu Sadakoto, the former lord of Matsuyama castle, after he spent time in France. There is a museum dedicated to his life at the foot of the hill.

The Museum peeks through the bamboo, like a cheeky little monkey.
That's a haiku, man.

Walking up to the villa is a lovely experience.

Most impressive...

His head was held on with duct tape...poor guy. The funny thing is, my wife did the same pose but refuses to let me post her picture...

After the villa, we went up to the castle. The caste was up at the top of a mountain, as they tend to be in Japan, and so you can either walk, take the packed cable-car, or take the lift.

We took the lift. That's my wife in the middle there, in the beige jacket. it was a lovely, peaceful, incredibly dangerous ride. Not the complete lack of any safety equipment (seatbelts, etc.). When you get on or off, you kind of just jump on, they don't even stop it...

The castle was pretty cool. Nice and big and imposing, as it should be.

Inside the castle were the requisite samurai gear--swords, armor, and the like. My inner 12-year-old was squealing with glee.

That's a whole lot of sharp there...

The first Japanese chain mail shirt I've seen...

This was my favorite exhibit.

A murder hole. Know what it was for? Yeah...murdering people.

After the castle, we went to a department store to while away the remaining hour until hour ship home, and I met a lovely young carpenter named Shuugei Iyo, who tolerated my passion for sharp shiny things and stones, and told me about some local blacksmiths and a city that used to be a hone mining town, but in later years turned to ceramics.

He's a gifted woodworker, check out his site (Japanese only) if you like that sort of thing.

And that was our trip...a heck of a day, and well worth it.

He's a t

Angry Robot Press Releases, Ebooks and me

2010-11-23T20:55:00.003+09:00

I got another interesting press release from Angry Robot Books.

Let's look at it TOGETHER!

PRESS RELEASE
22nd November 2010 ~ For Immediate Release

ANGRY ROBOT ANNOUNCES DIGITAL SHORT STORY STORE

On December 1st 2010, Angry Robot will be launching “Nano Editions”. Exclusive to the publisher’s own webstore at angryrobotstore.com, Nanos are digital short stories by Angry Robot novelists, sold at sensible prices in ePub format, ready to load onto the world’s most popular eBook readers.

Most Nanos will be in the 5,000 – 15,000 word range. Shorter works than that will be automatically bundled with another story to ensure value for money.

Talking of which – stories will cost just 59p each (approximately US $0.95). Readers can bundle a collection of any 10 by any combination of authors, for only £3.49 (US$5.59). The files will be DRM-free and available worldwide. If demand for the stories takes off, AR plan to also sell them via eBook retailers.

Angry Robot Editor Lee Harris said, “Publishing is changing, but our role as publishers remains the same – to find cool stories and bring them to readers. This is another step in Angry Robot’s ongoing plan to embrace the new opportunities digital formats provide – and an excellent way for readers to sample unfamiliar authors, without breaking the bank.”

Authors included in the Nanos series include multi-million-selling novelist Dan Abnett and award-winning short fiction authors Kaaron Warren and Aliette de Bodard, along with many others. We will have at least 30 Nanos available for the December 1st launch, with more added at regular intervals.

-

Lee Harris
Editor, Angry Robot

SO what Angry Robot has done is make a veritable short-story buffet, take what you want but eat all you take...

Holy crap, what a great idea.

I am an unashamed ebook lover. I am not one of those who say that ebooks are going to kill traditional publishing, but I think that no one would argue with me when I say that they will, indeed already have, caused a sea-change in the print world. The future of individual print companies is going to be determined by how they approach epublishing, and this strikes me as a particularly clever way. I mean, why not do this? What conceivable reason is there to not allow readers to customize their consumption, when the option is sitting right there all filled with ones-and-zeros?

I hope this catches on. I hope that this alerts other publishers to the fact that, once books become data, manipulation becomes automatable. You stop needing huge, complicated presses and start need small, complicated algorithms to make books. If you want flexibility, you can build it in. What joy...what freedom and innovation this can lead to.

I know this is only one publisher, and only one idea, but I think it actually does mean something bigger--books have changed. The very IDEA of a book is no longer what it used to be. I was listening to an interview with Tracy Hicks discussing his latest venture, and he said something that really resonated with me. Basically, his point was that books aren't stories, books are souvenirs of stories. You can read the story, get the words and images, on any platform. What a book does is remind you of the time you did so; it acts as a physical marker of the time you had a fever, and you sat in your dad's chair in front of the fire and read The Hobbit while your brother and sister were at school (for example). The book, the physical artifact, absorbs those memories, and that's why people love them, and why they won't die.

But stories...stories aren't books. They can exist anywhere; they've always been ephemeral. So why can't they be digital? Why can't you carry ten thousand of them in your bag? For people who love stories, the digital revolution in publishing is the best thing since the mimeograph machine. And I applaud Angry Books for taking a step in a damn good direction with this idea.

On The Other Side

2010-11-02T09:58:00.002+09:00

I've got a new article up on Grasping For The Wind.

It's about Religion and Spirituality in Japanese SF and Fantasy. It's called No God In The Machine.

Give it a read!

I give up.

2010-10-24T20:27:00.002+09:00

Seriously. I can't be the only person on earth who can't read about characters that are all, without exception, complete assholes. To the bone.

Authors, here's a tip: when you write a character, imagine yourself on a road trip in a van with that character for 3 days. If you are ready for that character to choke on his or her own liver by the end of that trip, that person SHOULD NOT BE YOUR MAIN CHARACTER.

As a reader, I pray you to remember that rule.

That is all.

This, actually.

2010-10-06T19:01:00.002+09:00

A quote from Guillermo Del Toro, via io9.com:
"If it doesn't engage me, I leave it," he said. "I do not do homework with my life."

Few times have I read anything so resonant.

I do not do homework with my life...oh yes.

Tome of the Undergates: Some impressions

2010-09-29T12:40:00.005+09:00

The latest "Big Idea" post on John Scalzi's blog "Whatever" has kind of stirred me into some kind of...thing.

Sam Sykes has written a Big Idea post about his debut novel, Tome of the Undergates. Not only have I been reading this one, but I've been kind of sort of having a Twitter interaction with Sam himself (his twitter profile). We've talked about video games and stuff. We're totally like BFF now. Who wants to touch me? I SAID WHO WANTS TO F#*$#%G TOUCH ME?!

Whew. Anyway. When I saw that Tome was available on Kindle, and at a reasonable price, I bought it rather impulsively. I'm now about 20% in, and I'm of two minds about this book...on one hand, Sam has a VERY strong grasp of prose for fun's sake. Meaning, he's not some pretentious writer's workshop obfuscator, but he's also not some low-brow hack. I love his action scenes, and he never lets things get too quiet. His characters speak naturally, relative to their crazy-assed personalities.

On the other hand, the book is pretty much a role playing game session on paper. More specifically, it's a D&D/WRPG in the "Planescape: Torment/Dragon Age: Origins" milieu, right down to characters having inflexible classes ("Rogue", "Archer", "Healer-Priestess"...I'm surprised he's not called anyone a "tank" yet.) So things get really, really game-y. For some that's good, for some that's bad, but forwarned is forearmed as they say. I personally enjoy playing these kinds of games, but the jury's still out if I want to read a story which is essentially someone else playing these kinds of games.

What's more, these people are horribly, horribly broken. Broken beyond all hope of sympathy, from me, anyway. I know that Sam thinks it's part of their charm, or raison d'etre even (you would know that too, if you read the Whatever post...did you?), but...man. It's really, really hard to care about them. REALLY hard. I'm not sure in what world "genocidal fury tempered by occasional attraction" qualifies as essentially human, but it's not one I'm sure I want to live in, even by proxy. And I still haven't figured out why they're together. Apart from two of the characters seeming to have serious schoolgirl/boy crushes on others, for the most part they seem almost murderously hateful toward each other. Nothing really shows why they are together as a party...not even money seems strong enough a motivator to overcome the revulsion that seems to flow between nearly all of the main characters.

In that Big Idea piece, Sam wrote "It’s about a world that makes such people that can be bound together only by their own self-loathing and what they find in each other to keep going." is absolutely descriptive of this book. Thinking about that...it doesn't sound very fun, actually. Self loathing mixed with hatred for everyone around you makes for...suicide? Psychopathic rampages? A journey of self-discovery? A very special "Blossom"?

I hope I find out soon.

That all being said, the book is not, by any rubrik, a bad one. It's quite well written and immensely fun in lots of parts. But the parts that are not fun are all the more unpleasant because of the contrast. I will continue reading, and unless the ending is utter crap (I suspect it's not) I'll likely read the sequels. SO I'm hooked, I'm just not sure how happy I am about the fact...

What do YOU think?

2010-09-17T11:29:00.003+09:00

I keep an eye on Angry Robot (as you can see from the banner), and I got an email from them that made me think a little bit.

It starts out straight-forward enough:

New Australian author Jo Anderton has signed with genre masterminds Angry Robot for at least two novels in her Veiled Worlds series. The worldwide deal, covering physical books and eBooks, was done by agent Anni Haig-Smith and Angry Robot’s publishing director, Marc Gascoigne. Debris will be published in the autumn of 2011, with direct sequel Suited to follow in 2012.

Congratulations to Jo Anderton, and good on you! I wish I could say the same.

Then there's this:

Angry Robot’s man with the cheque book Marc Gascoigne said, “With the ever-increasing popularity of Japanese and Korean anime, manga and computer games, it’s been surprising that there hasn’t been more SF and fantasy showing its influence. Debris’s mix of SF and fantasy themes, exotic future-medieval settings, Dune-esque warring factions, and a fabulous kick-ass heroine is exactly the sort of on-trend science fiction Angry Robot was set up to publish. We’re damned pleased to have Jo on board.”

Japanese and Korean Anime and Manga? I guess he doesn't know that Korean uses a different language from Japan, and thus different words for their comics and animation (Manhwa is apparently the word for both.) But ok, a little linguistic confusion happens.

Really, it's the jump in the middle there that seems odd to me. OK, so mixing SF and Fantasy themes and a future-medieval setting can be pretty Manga-ish (but the real source in these books will be seen later), but "Dune-esque warring factions and a fabulous kick-ass heroine" are not a particularly defining feature of the form, are they? I mean, I'm sure there are a few manga/anime that feature them, but the vast majority seem far more personal/individual, with male heroes. (One might almost say that Dune would be an influence for the former...)

But...

Jo added, “I’ve been reading Angry Robot books since their first giant, metallic steps and absolutely loving them. Debris started out as an idea about a magical version of the industrial revolution and a scarred garbage collector who saves the world, but still has to pay her rent. Add a few motley companions, a pinch of probably-misinterpreted quantum physics, and far too much time spent in front of various Final Fantasy video games. I’m thrilled my books have found a home at Angry Robot."

So the books actually don't have any Manga influence, at all. I mean, there are FF manga, sure, but...she said games.

Anyway, yeah, I'm nitpicking, I know. My real confusion comes from this attitude expressed in the press release that some nebulous influence manga/anime/"computer games" might have had on the books is part of the marketing strategy. Is that important? Is the fact that Jo played a lot of FF before/while writing the books a selling point? I'm honestly asking here. Sure, I don't think it is, but maybe someone does. Do you?

The thing is, I could see marketing books based directly on manga/anime because of the appeal to the fanbase. But saying "This author likes video games! And those video games are Japanese!" seems like a bit of a stretch. Is a fan supposed to read that and say "Oh! Hey, I played a lot of FF, so these books must be EXACTLY RIGHT FOR ME!"

I seriously don't want anyone to think I'm criticizing the author, or even Marc Gascoigne. I'm simply a little confused by this marketing. Wouldn't it be better to let the books stand on their own merits, rather than going out of your way to make a (fairly flimsy) connection to another (increasingly less) popular artform? From what details they gave, the books do sound interesting, but really, there's not much there...I wish they'd said more about the books themselves.

For what it's worth, I've been piqued. I'll see if I can't review this one, see what's what.

In Which I Get Cranky Beyond Reason...

2010-08-29T17:24:00.006+09:00

I really need to stop reading author interviews, or indeed anything which gives me any insight into the character of writers whose writing I (try to) enjoy.

It started with Orscon Scott Card. I LOVED Ender's Game when I was young, and I read the entire series with glee...until I learned more about the real guy behind them. Things like raging homophobia, his somewhat nutty views on Global Warming (It's all a conspiracy, man...) and the like colored my perceptions of the man, and thus his writing. I can't read a single Card book now without thinking, do I really want to support this man with my money and my attention?

The answer is no.

It's a similar story with Dan Simmons. His books have been such a pleasure to read,with such erudition, that when I found out the man is full of ridiculous anti-Muslim and anti-Hispanic hate (he actually complains that Spanish language education helps the "reconquista" on his blog), I nearly cried.

So it is with some sadness (which quickly turned to anger, as I'd already bought the man's book) that I read this interview that Aidan Moher had with recent World Fantasy Award nominee Jeff Vandermeer.It's not that Vandermeer is in the same nutjob/douchebag crowd as Simmons or Card, but reading that interview just put my teeth on edge. The guy's a pompous clown...every question was turned into "Gosh, what did you mean by that, you don't know anything!" and, frankly, I think the guy's a jerk. What's more, reading the story of the publishing of his first book, I think he's not only a jerk but a narcissist...I mean, he has a contract with a publisher and then DOUBLES THE SIZE OF THE BOOK, just because he wanted to. And you know what? I've read that book. The extra stuff is silly, pointless in-jokes and more ego-boosting. What kind of person writes an entire story in CODE, for pete's sake? Who thinks that I, as a reader, have the time and energy to devote to decoding an entire short story, which is in the end, not particularly enlightening or edifying? It is, at most, amusing. But hey, it's ART, right?

What was the point of such an exercise? First, it is important to the frame/plot of the new material. Second, the reader gains the experience of actually writing the story, word by word. The effect of decryption also slows the reading of the story, making each word have more weight, an effect usually specific to poetry. The sting in the tail of the decrypted story frees the reader to take over the author's role on a permanent basis. The intent is to liberate the reader from the author's manipulation, in a sense.

(Taken from City of Saints and Madmen: The Untold Story Part 1
by Jeff VanderMeer, The Agony Column for April 6, 2004)

But you know what? The thing that got me going about the man's attitude could be summed up in this quote, describing the reaction to a rather peculiar piece called "The Early History of Ambergris," one part of City of Saints and Madmen:

My first readers sometimes didn't know what to make of it. Granted, about half of them enjoyed it. But among the others, one frequent response was "that's not a story." Another response--the one that irritated me--went like this: "Jeff, you've done a great job of background writing here. Now you know the entire history of Ambergris and you can write actual stories about the Silence and other events, fleshing out what you've summarized here." To which I replied, no--this is the story; the summary is the story. I wasn’t at all interested in fleshing out those events. A couple of people even advised me not to try to publish "Early History" because "it isn't a story." Did I agree? Not really. I have no defense for summarily rejecting half the advice I received on "Early History," except that it didn't seem to pertain to the actual text I had written.

(Taken from City of Saints and Madmen: The Untold Story Part 1
by Jeff VanderMeer, The Agony Column for April 6, 2004)

So fully half of his readers felt that this "thing" wasn't actually a story. But he says no, the story is there, it's just missing details or cohesion. Why did he bury his intentions? Why make it harder for readers to know what you actually want them to know? WHY FOR CHRIST'S SAKE would you prevent half of the people who read your story from understanding what you're writing?

Oh, I know, because you think you're an "artist", and the thing that makes an artist is lack of understanding. Because of course, if people don't understand you it's THEIR fault, not yours, right?

お前らは分からないだけど、あれは僕のせいじゃないよ。何で僕の言葉を読めないか？

See?

If you can't understand that, it's YOUR fault, not mine.

Work In Progress, August 2010

2010-08-17T12:10:00.004+09:00

The beginning of a story that won't let me go...a weird western.

You can thank H.P. Lovecraft and Red Dead Redemption.

***************

Jakob Kleist was an old man, and so he woke early most days. Today was like most days. He rose and put a coffee pot on the stove, and poured water for his morning ablution. The low chime of his gate wards rang as he shaved. He carefully wiped the large razor his father had left him, patinaed with age, folded it, and slipped it into his back pocket. He did not hurry as he washed the remaining lather from his face and dried his hands. The mother-of-pearl buttons on his shirt glinted in the morning light as he closed them. He put on his hat.

He opened the door and watched the shuffling figure approach. It was a man, young, clean shaven and dressed in a well-worn uniform of dusky green and brown. He was dead, and had been for some time by the color. Smoked glass lenses covered his eyes, and a wide-brimmed hat shielded his face from the sun. The skin of his face bulged and twitched like the belly of a gravid mare. Jakob’s stomach contracted, cold inside him.

“You stop, now. That’s close enough.”, Jakob said, as the dead man approached the covered porch. The dead man stopped. Jakob stepped onto the porch and he looked quickly to each side, expecting ambush. Nothing was there. He slowly stepped foward, cautious of trickery.

“Why’re you here, boy?” he asked of the thing, not at all sure if it could answer.

The corpse opened his mouth, and a voice came from inside it, distant but clear. It said “I’ve come with a message.”

“You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be able to be here. How’d you get through?” Jakob asked.

“Things have changed, the walls wear thin. We are coming.” the dead man said.

Fear started to pulse in his throat, but Jakob didn’t let his voice quaver. “That your message then? You finished?”

“No, Jakob Kleist. My message is this...” There was a pause then, his throat worked strangely and a new voice came from between dead man’s lips. “Hello father. I’ll be seeing you soon.”

The world seemed to shift a little under Jakob’s feet. The voice stirred up memories he preferred to keep locked away, and their rising shattered his self control. He blindly put out a hand as if to steady himself on the porchpost, but the dead man moved suddenly. He leapt forward, grabbed the groping hand and shifted, pulling Kleist into the air and throwing him rolling in the dirt. The old man felt something give in his chest, and the pain took his breath away. He blinked away the black spots dancing in his vision, fear spurring him to roll over and scramble backward, trying to keep away from the corpse shambling toward him.

The dead man must have used all his energy in the sudden attack, for he now moved weakly, stumbling drunkenly toward the old man rolling in the dust.

Kleist crabbed backwards until he backed up against a tree, and he used the leverage it offered to get to his feet. His breath escaped in a pained wheeze, and the world spun around him, but he stayed upright and managed to slip the folded razor out of his back pocket. He flipped it open and ran the blade over his left palm, just deep enough to let the blood run freely. This he flicked at the corpse, and as it hit his skin the crimson liquid exploded, knocking the corpse to the ground. Jakob slid down the tree to his knees, and slapped his bleeding palm to the earth. The ground rippled, like a pond disturbed by a dropped stone, and the ripples spread toward the dead man now trying to struggle upright. But when the first ripple reached him, the earth reared up in a wave and crashed over him and then hardened again into solid earth. The corpse was suddenly imprisoned in a small hill, hard as kiln-fired ceramic.

Jakob relaxed, breathing shallowly against his broken ribs, and stood. He stumbled over to the hill and, using his still-flowing blood, wrote a few scrawled figures across the smooth surface of the hill. When he finished, the hillock trembled then withdrew back down into the ground, leaving a clean patch of earth in its wake, leaving behind no sign of the abomination it had swallowed.

Jakob’s world went blank.

Hi Kids! You might remember me from...

2010-08-02T22:13:00.002+09:00

This other blog!

If you want to read more about my lief in Japan, you might want to check out my monthly article series at Grasping For The Wind, where I'll be writing about being a fan of Fantasy and SF living in the mysteriose Oriente.

I'll still be posting here and at that other place, but for Japan-centric stuff, it'll be funneled over there for a bit.

Check it out!

Temeraire love...

2010-08-01T18:22:00.005+09:00

Have you read Naomi Novik's Temeraire books? Well, have you?

I just finished Throne of Jade, the second book in the series, which I bought on Kindle as soon as I finished the first volume, His Majesty's Dragon, and if I had a bit more spare cash I'd already have bought all of the others in the series.

Yes, they were that good.

First, the basics. The series is set during the Napoleonic wars, and focuses on one Englishman, Captain Martin Laurence, and his dragon, Temeraire. Of course, that reveals the big twist here--this is a history of a rather tumultuous time in European history...with dragons. Lots of them, of all shapes and sizes, and the difference adds a lot to the power of the story.

The Napoleonic wars took place at the beginning of the 19th century, and engulfed Europe in a series of wars that left millions dead. Throwing dragons into the mix seems almost unnecessary, as the true story itself is the stuff of fantasy. A single man, starting life as a lowly artillery corporal, rising to found an empire, overthrow republics and turn all of the continent of Europe into a battlefield...seriously, it's more than a little epic.

In writing about Laurence and his dragon, Novik succeeds in making the backdrop of these conflicts a stage for truly engaging adventure on a smaller, more personal scale, as well as giving opportunities for conversations about issues as difficult and timely as slavery and racism, intercultural conflict and the place of the individual in the sweeping events of history. The role of dragons in the European war is thrown into question as Temeraire discovers the evil of slavery, and sees the place that dragons hold in societies outside his own Britain, where dragons are seen as a kind of necessary evil, vicious brutes tamed for the use of men but still viewed with fear and suspicion, and kept isolated except in the performance of their duties at e behest of their masters.

I've yet to finish the series, but already I can see a politicization of the dragons in the outing--parallels with African slavery has already started to surface, and as Laurence himself has abolitionist leanings, it is inevitable that the series would treat this issue. In addition, a trip to China reveals an alternative to Temeraire, one where dragons are equal members of society with their own money, creative roles (dragon poetry, etc.) and most importunely, respect. It'll be futo see how Novik explores this issue more deeply in e future books.

But, really, these stories are just fun. The characters are brilliantly painted, as lifelike and believable as any I've seen in fiction. They grow and breathe, live and die and wear their histories like skin. Rarely have I been so moved to care about fictional characters, some of them not even human, as I have in these books. The action scenes, as believable as they are exciting, are drenched in glory as well as blood (nothing gory, but not exactly flinching at the ugly side of war). The political intrigue is engaging while not taking over the story, and in these first two volumes seems to be buoying toward something truly deep. Honestly, I've not had as much fun reading fantasy OR history books in a while.

Big big thumbs up...

A Quiet Drive

2010-07-26T12:21:00.004+09:00

Driving in Japan can have some peculiar challenges.
Like mind-numbing fear.

Last night, I got the bizarre idea to drive out to a small mountain town that I heard had at one time given home to a whetstone mine (tied to another obsession of mine you might have read about). I knew it was out of the way--I can read a map, after all. But I forgot that out of the way can have a very special meaning in Japan.

You see, Japan has lots of mountains, which are usually big things, but they are all crammed in very tightly, so they kind of get...squashed together. Driving in the mountains in the US usually means lots of winding roads and switchbacks. In Japan it means driving on things which would best be descried as "paved goat paths." Most of the 40 kilometer trip there was nice, broad, 4-lane highway, but about 3km out from the village, I turned off the highway and the nice big roads suddenly contracted into one lane (but somehow, mysteriously, 2-way) streets bordered by towering pines on one side and sheer drop-offs on the other. No sane person would build roads there...seriously.

I made my way, though, gripping the steering wheel tightly, driving about 10 km an hour and hoping that no one would come the other way, and found the village. Although everything was closed and I couldn't find the place I was looking for it was still very pretty, with lovely valley views and babbling brooks. So that was good--it wasn't a total loss. I even saw some foxes and a Tanuki. Then it came time to go home.

Now let me just preface this with a big old preemptive "It was my fault". I know it. There's no need to tell me, ok?

So here's what happened.

I had turned around, and was retracing my way home, and I even had the navigation system set for the way back. But suddenly, I noticed what looked like a big, brand new two-lane highway leading in the general direction of home...It had intersected the little one-way road I had come in on at a very acute angle and I hadn't seen it coming in. Now, looking at the winding path I had taken there and comparing it to the big wide highway, and taking into consideration that although it wasn't on the navigation map, that map was 2 years old and the highway looked brand new, I turned onto it. Would you have done differently? Of course not.

What I hadn't considered, of course, was the apparent fact that the Japanese road system was designed by a blind fool possessed by the soul of the Marquis De Sade. The two lane went about a half a mile, and suddenly ended at a t-intersection with another one of those one-lane roads (WHY WOULD ANYONE BUILD THIS ROAD????). Now, at this point I SHOULD have turned back to the road I had come in on, the familiar though scary path. But, that new path still went in the general direction of home, and it appeared to wind through a bucolic forest offering nice scenery and the chance to see more wildlife, rather than skirt any valleys or cliffs. So I took it.

Ghu help me.

The path soon narrowed. Then narrowed again. It squeezed down into a trail just barely wider than my car, hemmed in by overgrown weeds and pine trees curving overhead to make a tunnel that ended about 2 feet above my car. Now, apart from the fact that this road was paved beautifully, with drainage grates installed every 100 meters or so, I would have sworn that this was a trail left by generations of wandering mountain bears, not a road made by men. There were no houses, no paths into the forest, no sign of any habitation or industry but the road. If I had been afraid of oncoming traffic on the way in, I was nearly wetting myself now.

A real, honest to goodness picture of the road.

I drove slowly, the needle hovering just above the 0, and sweated and cursed and laughed, unbelieving the fact that not only did this road exist, for cars, but that I was driving on it. I was scared not only of traffic, but of falling limbs, of potholes, of bears...the works. Truth be told, we have had some real flooding recently, and the possibility of the road being blocked by a recent landlside, or washed away totally, or any number of problems that would require me to drive over it again, IN REVERSE, was very real. Luckily, none of those obstacles appeared.

Again, I am making NONE of this up.

But of course, on a hairpin turn with no place to pull off and let it pass safely, another car did.

Now, I had been driving for more than a mile and a half, through switchbacks and blind curves, and I was not ABOUT to back up. The map showed that we were about 300 meters from the nearest real road, and I laid into my horn. The oncoming car, hidden behind its own headlights (it was dark, of course, in that forest) backed up, and edged ever so slightly to the side, with it's tire hanging half off the road over a ditch. I did the same, and luckily there was just enough clear space to the side to go off the road. I folded in my mirrors, as did the other car (I'm not joking), and we passed, with about 3cm to spare.

I was soaked in sweat and fear.

But that final 300 meters passed, and I nearly cried with joy when the path intersected that lovely 4 lane highway that lead home. And I made it home safely, in the end, with another story to tell about my own stupidity.

I'll have to go back during the day to find the hones, though.

Reading the Hugo Nominees: The City & The City

2010-07-13T17:06:00.009+09:00

I've found my vote.

After getting my Hugo Voters pack and the free eBooks of the nominees, I swore to myself I'd try to read all of them before I voted. I did. I tried. But the only one I made it through was this one...and that's good enough for me.

You see, if book isn't good enough to hold my attention after the first couple of chapters, I couldn't in good conscience vote for it for an award, and most of the Nominees couldn't hold my attention for the first ten pages.

But The City & The City? I'm planning to read this one at least two more times.

I like China Mieville's work. I've read his three New Crobuzon novels (Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council) and enjoyed them all quite a lot, so I was already planning to buy this one. And now, having gotten through my free copy, I'm going to buy it anyway--because it deserves my money.

China has a flair for the fantastic, for introducing amazing ideas with little fanfare and letting you figure out for yourself how new, how exciting this thing is...and The City & The City is a constant rise of fascination and thrill, a slow drop of the jaw as you penetrate deeper into the mystery of the story.

I think the cover blurbs do little justice to this one. Basically, this story is a murder mystery/political thriller--if you have to genre-fy it, that is. It's not actually that fantasy-ish, in the traditional sense of the word. Nothing, NOTHING, in this book, is impossible. There's no magic, not amazing technology (except for rumors about ancient artifacts with unexplained powers, which are left as just that--rumors).

The amazing thing about this story, this wonderful, enthralling story, is that it skirts so very closely to the real world.

The two cities of the title are Bes'z and Ul Qoma. These places have different cultures, languages, and histories. Bes'z is vaguely Austro-Hungarian/Eastern European in feel, with street names like "GunterStrasz" and characters named "Lizbyet Corwi" or "Vilyem Barichi." Ul Qoma suggests a more Middle Eastern feel (as the name might imply), and in addition it apparently had a Socialist revolution--it is being blockaded by the US, keeping out such worldly things as Coca-Cola.

So there are two cities. Different in so many ways...and yet, and yet, the fascinating thing is these two cites share something vital. The same physical space.

"Aha!" I hear you say. We've moved into science fiction/fantasy territory--there's some kind of dimensional rift, or a wizard did it, or...quantum...stuff!"

Nope. These two city-states, with utterly distinct cultures, languages and political situations--and some amount of antagonism--are literally in the same place. They are interlaced, weaving together physically to make a place where neighborhoods abut another country, where a single street can pass between two cities as it meanders from building to building (a phenomenon called "crosshatching"). And because these cities are in different countries, with non-cooperative governments and some level of animosity, the citizens can, legally, only be in ONE place at a time.

Let's back up here...and let's get spoilery (I'm not going to really discuss details of the story, but more my interpretation--which might ruin it if you want to make your own, unsullied, as it were, by mine.)

I used to live in Post-unification Berlin (a city specifically mentioned in the book, and dismissed as "not at all the same"). In fact, I lived within spitting distance of the remains of the wall. That wall used to mark the border between two cities that were one--two countries that shared a name, a history, and a culture but had been cut in two for political reasons. The wall fell, eventually, and the city started to heal, but the marks are still there. People dressed a little differently, spoke a little differently, thought a little differently. That wall was in place for less than 30 years, but the differences on each side were real.

Now imagine that the division between East and West hadn't lasted for 30 years, but 300. Or 1000. How different would each side be? And how resistant to unification the two halves would become...the individual identity of each side would have been defined by separation. And imagine how that would be expressed in the minds of the people--over the years, the decades, it would be utterly and completely natural to accept the way of things. It would become ingrained...and this is what happened in the Cities of Mieville's novel.

Some untold number of years ago, thousands perhaps? The cities split, or grew together, or SOMETHING, and there were two cities in one place. They resisted unification, for whatever reason, and as time passed the cities reached a status quo with each other. The established reasonably solid borders, though those borders might claim every other building on a particular street, or they might miss a certain space, and in order to protect the integrity of the split, they erected barriers. Not physical barriers, but psychological ones.

The people of each city are trained from childhood, and from all sides, to not see or sense the other city in any way. They are trained in a kind of pointed ignoring that comes near to pathological blindness. What this means is, people--real live people--who live in the two cities can be walking down the same street, next to each other, but if one is in Bes'z and the other is in Ul Qoman, they can not see each other. They must, in the words of the book, "unsee." There are cues to help with this, luckily. Differences in dress and mannerism, and of course language help mark people as in one city or the other, and architecture and even colors differ enough that mistakes are largely absent. But that's it. No walls, no barricades. Just ingrained willful ignoring of the spaces around you which aren't yours.

In the book, it is shown time and again that there is no real physical prevention of seeing, but the indoctrination of each child trains them to not pay any attention to the inhabitants of the other city. In fact, the rift is so vital, so strong, that there is a specific law and a specific organization that pertains to just this thing. Any failure to maintain your presence in JUST ONE city, any paying of attention to events in the other, results in "Breach", and the infractor becomes subject of a near mythical, seemingly all powerful organization called just that: "Breach".

It sounds mad. It sounds like something utterly impossible...until you look a little more closely at the realities of national, linguistic and cultural borders.

If we return to Germany, think about this passage from Wikipedia:

When the Wall was erected, Berlin's complex public transit networks, the S-Bahn and U-Bahn, were divided with it. Some lines were cut in half; many stations were shut down. Three western lines traveled through brief sections of East Berlin territory, passing through eastern stations (called Geisterbahnhöfe, or ghost stations) without stopping. Both the eastern and western networks converged at Friedrichstraße, which became a major crossing point for those (mostly Westerners) with permission to cross.

Think about that--the trains crossed into another country, where you would be SHOT if you got off...then back into yours. You could look out the windows of your train on the way to work and see another country, where you had no hope of going, where you might have family or friends that you could never meet...and get off the train, still in your own nation, and go about your day.

Or take a look at this:

See that? That little spot there? That was a little village called Steinstuecken, that for some weird political reason was added to West Berlin in the big kerfluffle that arbitrarily divided a city into two enemy states. And so it was completely isolated, an area of a few square kilometers, for vague political reasons, and if you tried to leave for ANY REASON, you would be shot on sight.

So, no, I don't think the story is that out of touch with reality. I wish it were. It's just an extreme extension of things that we all known are true about politics, people, and psychology. In fact, the extreme isn't that far off...just look at Yugoslavia.

Of course, the madness of the politics and the cities is only part of the story. Add in some corporate greed, the natural tendencies of young people to resist the status quo, and some weirded out foreigners and the book becomes a real-live story. And a GOOD one.

This was a FANTASTIC book. On top of all the craziness with the politics and the cities themselves, the meat of the story is an exciting page turner of a mystery, with likable, believable characters and a satisfying ending. So you get it all--mind-bending weirdness, police procedural and a murder mystery, all in one.

Seriously, go and read it.

Twas a hot and sultry evening...

2010-07-07T22:56:00.002+09:00

Last night. And tonight. And probably tomorrow night.

You got a problem with that? Cause I do...

Japan has a lot going for it. Low crime rate, cheap and competent medical care, excellent food...

But it ain't got weather. You get like, two good weeks in Spring, and the rest of the year is utter crap with scattered bits of hell. Right now is the latter.

But I shouldn't complain. Life is good...I just got a bonus at work, totally unplanned for and the actual result of my company appreciating my hard work--making it a REAL LIVE BONUS, as opposed to the Japanese "Deferred Compensation" faux-nus--and the wife said I could buy what I want with it. So...70,000 JPY bonus. iPad 64gig wifi is 68,800 JPY.

Guess what's coming in a week or two? That's right, UTTERLY NEEDLESS TECHNOLOGICAL GIMMICRY!!!! But it's pretty and shiny and it will help me while away the hours until death's icy hand closes over me for good.

How's by you?

Bad Translation Makes Kittens Sad

2010-06-24T11:15:00.010+09:00

See? See what happens when you FAIL at translation?

My wife recommended a book, one of her favorite books, and she even went so far as to research the English translation (my wife is Japanese).

It's called Crossfire, by an immensely popular writer over here: Miyuki Miyabe. She's been called "The Japanese Stephen King", which she MIGHT have been aiming for (she name drops him in the book, and this one, well...we'll get to that).

So I bought it, because hey--she's my wife. Luckily, the book is a kind of mystery/suspense thriller, which is right down my alley, so I didn't have to suffer through some syrupy romance crap (She also likes Nicholas Sparks...).

So the book arrives, and...I'm having some problems reading it.

I really want to like it. The story is cool--it's about a pyrokinetic woman (see? Stephen King INVENTED that word...) who becomes a vigilante, and a police woman who is chasing her, as well as a super-secret group of vigilantes with super powers, and it should be exciting and cool...but it isn't.

It's dull, tired and flat as a pancake. The reason, I HAVE to believe, is the translation.

Now, I have some experience with translation, both reading and writing, and I have some theory behind me when I say this: This translation is a failure.

It fails on the basic idea that when you translate a work, ESPECIALLY a work of popular fiction, you should make something worth reading. Something that works as a piece of English, rather than a piece of Japanese fiction, which happens to be in English words.

Let me give you a concrete example--
In the story, our main character is tracking down a scumbag murderer, and she is meeting one of his friends. She find him, and the place is described thus:
"an old, run down drinking establishment."

Now, this is a popular novel, a suspenseful thriller about cops and criminals. There is not a single character in this book that, were they speaking English, would use the phrase "drinking establishment". They would say "Dive". "Seedy bar". "A hole-in-the-wall".

That's how people talk. But the translators (Deborah Stuhr Iwabuchi and Anna Husson Isozaki) apparently don't.

Then there are the weird refusals to turn a Japanese text into and English text. What I mean is, Japanese language and writing follow certain conventions that we just don't in English. Japanese texts DEMAND context and description, for reasons that I don't fully understand but I believe have things to do with the context-heaviness of the language. In this novel, it is expressed in the fact that the opening scene, which takes place in an abandoned factory, is preluded by three pages of detailed description of this factory and its neighborhood--none of which is never mentioned again.

Things like "Hammers, wrenches, and giant phillips-head screws about thirty centimeters across were scattered here and there on the shelves.". Those enormous screws, such odd things, never ever come up in the story again. They should--screws that size certainly seem significant, but nope. Nothing. In an English novel, if something is not actually important to the story, you don't put it in the story. But apparently that's ok in a Japanese novel, part of establishing the vital scenery, creating context that is so important. So the translators devote nearly 20 words to empty, overwrought description (and this certainly isn't the limit)--rather than saying "the place was littered with junk", as befits a passing thing in an English novel.

Another example...A young man who, like our main character, has paranormal psychic powers that he uses to punish criminals, is talking about a case he's on, and says "There's this pitiful man in his thirties who can't get along without periodically interfering with little girls."

Now, I understand the hesitation to deal with this sensitive a topic, but a young, wild man (dyed hair, extreme sports hobbies) would never, ever use "interfering with" as a euphemism for pedophilia. "Touching", "molesting", there are lots of 'em. But "interfering"? That may well have been a direct translation of the word in the original (I haven't checked yet, but I will), but it surely doesn't fit--it doesn't carry anything about the character, or the situation, or the atmosphere of the book.

I guess what I'm talking about here is that the translators simply did the mechanical task of turning Japanese words and grammar into English words and grammar, but did NOT do the real work of making an exciting, engaging English novel. I'm of the "translation as creation" school of thought, best described in this article by Fred Uleman on the Japan Association of Translators website.

This quote is perhaps best: "The words and the grammar are only important because they carry the meaning. Feel free to ignore them when they get in the way. This is the key to doing good translation." Or perhaps, most importantly,

If the source text reads smoothly, your translation also has to read smoothly. Just as you should not omit meaning, you should not add new meaning or add new awkwardness in the translation.

What that means is, if you're translating an exciting, suspenseful novel from Japanese, you should produce an exciting, suspenseful novel in English. Sadly, this takes more than just a good grasp of the two languages, it takes a good grasp of writing techniques and a sense for writing--in a word, talent.

Without that, you get a translation like the one I'm slogging through now (oh, what we do for love)--boring, flat and unengaging, with brief flashes of the best-seller that lurks behind it.

How To Kill My Interest as a Reader

2010-05-27T18:34:00.004+09:00

"The emperor of China once asked his court painter, "What's easy to paint and what's hard to paint?" the answer was, "Dogs are difficult, demons are easy. Quiet, low-key things like dogs in our immediate surroundings are hard to get right, but anyone can draw a demon."--Alex Kerr, Dogs and Demons p. 10

I was reading Catherine Valente's Palimpsest last night. It is a famous book, nowadays, in certain circles. It's nominated for a Hugo, and is written by a young woman garnering a lot of attention in the SF/Fantasy world. And rightly so, the writing is rich and deep (if at times overpowering..."a bee sting blooms on her cheek like a kiss" (p. 6) is one of the more meaningless similes I've seen...).

It starts with some lovely fantasy, introducing a city of beauty and mystery, with impenetrable rituals and inhuman citizens. And just as I was settling into the new world, ready to explore it, I was whisked away to the mysteriouse oriente....

Sorry, I mean Japan.

The action jumps to a the interior of a Shinkansen, and within a paragraph I was utterly and completely disgusted.

For, you see, Japan here (as it so often is) is used as shorthand for exotic, unusual places with mysterious people. The manipulation is terrible. We are introduced to a young, apparently really hot, woman named Amaya Sei. It is implied that her name is intriguing because of it's meaning, "Purity". Unfortunately, that's 1.) not how Japanese names work and 2.) "Sei" does not mean purity. The sound "sei", depending upon the kanji used to write it, can mean:

Sex, gender, fault, energy, military strength, nymph/sprite, semen, true, regular, saint...and a hundred other things, due to the plastic relationship between meaning and sounds in Japanese.

A great number of things. And without seeing the word written, without context, it's IMPOSSIBLE to know the meaning of the word. That's how Japanese works. But for the story, of course, it's important to manipulate the reality of a culture and people.

Of course, the names being meaningless is mentioned (Ms. Valente did, apparently, do some research):

He quirked an eyebrow briefly, slightly, in such a way that no one afterwards might be able to safely accuse him of having done it. Sei knew the look. Names are meaningless, plosives and breath, but those who liked the slope of her waist often made much of hers, which denoted purity, clarity—as though it had any more in the way of depth than others. They wondered,
all of them, if she really was pure, as pure as her name announced her to be, all white banners and hymeneal grace.

--Palimpsest, p. 9

(Another nit to pick...neither of the names, Amaya Sei and Sato Kenji, contain any plosives. Sorry, linguist.)

But again, HE COULD NOT HAVE KNOWN the meaning of her name.

But the thing that really gets me is the depiction of the SHinkansen itself. Because NOTHING SHE SAYS about the train is right.

Let's start with:

[S]he was always moved to do this on the long-distance trains which crisscrossed the islands like corset stays. They were so pale and pure and unfathomably fast, like iridescent snakes hissing down to the sea. The Shinkansen was always pristine, always perfect, its aim always true.

--Palimpsest, p. 7

Hmmm...here you go:

COPYRIGHT © WEST JAPAN RAILWAY COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

So...look like a corsetlace to you?

And then...

He gestured for her to sit down and, though she knew better, they sat together for a moment, her body held tense and tight, ready to run, to cry out if need be. Their thighs touched—a gesture of intimacy she had never allowed herself with another passenger.

--Palimpsest, p. 9

The seats on a shinkansen:

The two varieties. You'll notice that the only way it would be POSSIBLE to let your thighs touch would be if you really tried...there's a good 8 inches between "normally sized" people sitting here.

But really, this is nothing compared to:

[S]he took Sato Kenji by their linked hands and led him to the rickety, shivering place between the carriage cars, where the wind keened and crooned through the cracks in the grating and the white walls gave way to chrome.

--Palimpsest, p. 11

There is no place, on any Shinkansen in Japan, where this could have happened. There is no grating, no wind (the shinkansen travels at speeds of up to 186mph...) no chrome...it's a seamless, pressurized environment. That's part of what makes the shinkansen special...

And what bothers me about all of this, as minor and nitpicky as it is, is that it implies that Ms. Valente relies on the ignorance of her readers to maintain her illusion. Fiction is a grand lie, and you have to do it RIGHT to make it believable. Fantasy is easy--cause no one knows what a demon really looks like. But truth? You can't fake that. You have to do the research. You have to care about the details. For God's sake, the characters in this section LOVE the Shinkansen, and it is indeed worthy of love. So why didn't the author take the time to check out the beauty of the real thing? All it takes is a couple of minutes on Google, and you'll know all you need to know.

The short of it is, I'm not going to invest the time in this book that it probably deserves, because the author didn't invest the time in her subject that it deserved. There are lots of people who will say that all of this isn't important, and it probably isn't, but it ruined the book for me.

But hey, maybe you'll love it.

Review: Nekropolis by Tim Waggoner

2010-05-26T00:00:00.000+09:00

Zombie Detective! Good Times!

My first Angry Robot Army book, and this was definitely a fun read.

Nekropolis, by Tim Waggoner
US Release July, 2010 (possibly delayed...Angry Robot's going through some changes)
UK: Now Available

Nekropolis (scroll down at the link for a free sample) is a fun addition to the recent growth of the "supernatural noir" subgenre. Indeed, it's the logical progression--we've had the Noir Wizard (Jim Butcher's Dresden Files), the Noir Vampire (Charlie Huston's Joe Pitt series), and now we've got the Noir Zombie!

Matthew Richter, our hero, is a walking corpse trying to keep his body from going the way of all flesh through expensive magical preservation. He funds his need by using the particular skills he developed in a 20-year police career to help people out with the rather unusual problems they encounter in the titular city of darkness, Nekropolis. He's unique in this city of unusual beings in that he is a zombie, a walking corpse, who has retained his will and consciousness...and the reasons for this remain unclear to himself and to those around him.

The particular MacGuffin in our story, the Dawnstone, is introduced by/used to introduce our requisite femme fatale--Davona Kanti, half vampire daughter of the city's Vampire Darklord. (How someone can be "half-vampire" is not exactly clear; the unusual idea that vampires can have children is kind of glossed over. But I digress.) Davona is blonde, thin, and apparently just the thing to get Richter's dead flesh perking.

Davona's problem is simple: the Dawnstone, a powerful artifact in her father's collection, a collection which had been entrusted to her, has gone missing and she's understandably terrified that her immensely powerful and rather unsympathetic father will hold her responsible. So she approaches Richter to ask for help, having heard he does that sort of thing.

After the expected banter (the humor in the book is actually pretty good, though it does occasionally "pun"ish the reader a bit much. Be warned.), the hunt begins and finally we meet the TRUE star of our story, the city itself. The title of the book is apt, as it is clear that the reason we're here is to see the place that Waggoner built. And it's worth it!

Nekropolis is a city populated by supernatural beings, with an immense variety of residents. Waggoner seems to have taken the kitchen sink approach to populating his world; it's full of demons, wizards, undead, shapeshifters, dark gods and more--he pulls characters from mythology (werewolves, Hindu demons), classic literature (Frankenstein's Monster, Jekyll & Hyde), and, apparently, thin air (The Chiranha, a cross between a chihuahua and a piranha, and the most fearsome scavenger in the city...???). It honestly gets a little overwhelming at times, but it's fun to spot all of the references (I was particularly tickled by the name of the information peddling bug).

All of these entities are aligned with a particular Darklord, divided by "type". There are the undead, shapeshifters (called "Lykes"), Vampires, magic users, and demons, and each group has its own area of Nekropolis. As our characters are touring the city, they move through these areas and encounter the Darklord of each of these groups, and in the process we learn about Richter's history, his relationships and conflicts with the Darklords, and find out a wee bit about the history of Nekropolis itself.

Personally, I would have enjoyed more of the latter; the city is a fascinating place, and I really think its connection to our world and the reasons for its existence, while explained in brief, could do with a much deeper examination. The fact that this book is obviously the first in a series (the sequel, Dark Streets, is due this year) encourages me.

Although the ending felt a little rushed, the book is a winner for sheer imagination and page-turning fun. All of the little turns along the way keep the story fresh, and the characters inhabiting the city are engaging. I read the book in one sitting (at 416pp it's not that long) and I enjoyed it enough that I'm looking forward to more, especially given that there are a few points in this book which, I think, were designed specifically to lead to further investiagtion. For example, there are advanced cybernetic enhancements that turn up in certain fringe characters that I think will be big in the sequel(s), and I'm eager to find out.

So the bottom line: Hemingway it ain't, but for a quick summer read, for the fan of fast paced, noirish dark fantasy, this one's a winner.

Jim Rion

Worldcon 2010 Here I Come!

2010-05-20T21:36:00.003+09:00

Except, not really.

SF geeks everywhere already know, but if you're not one of them, the sort of Grand Ball of the geek world is the yearly Worldcon, the SF convention to end all socially inept conventions. Readers, writers, fen and filkers all get together and live it up, nerdstyle.

I've never been to one, alas, I couldn't afford it when it was in Tokyo and since it's in Australia this year, ain't no way.

I mean, I MIGHT be able to convince the wife to go to Australia, but just to watch me get all squealy over some writers she's never heard of (George RR MARTIN!!!!)? Not a chance.

But I DID decide to become a "supporting member" this year, giving me two things. First, I can vote on the Hugo awards for genre literature and arts, which is pretty cool. But for me, perhaps best of all is I get eBook copies of all the nominated literature...novels, novellas, comics and all.

I was ALREADY planning on buying 80% of this stuff, so for the about US$50 it's a bargain. I mean, Boneshaker, The City & The City, The Windup Girl, Julian Comstock...that's fifty bucks right there. Add the graphic novels, magazines and novellas and I'm practically making book!

So now I have to wade through the packet to be an informed voter...pity me! ;)

I GET it now...

2010-05-17T12:44:00.003+09:00

So I've finished the first book of A Song Of Ice and Fire, and am halfway through the second.

And yep, I get it. The fans of the books, of which I am now one, have found something very very special here.

I'm stunned, really, that I never read these before. I mean, I'm an epic fantasy JUNKIE. Why didn't I read these books years ago?

The characters are so real and complex, the plotting is compelling and it's just so good. It's everything I want in a book--a huge, sweeping story, filled with people that are actually PEOPLE, not just archetypes, and things happen that shouldn't happen in a story. People die or are crippled without warning, and it actually changes things. The story goes places that you don't expect, and it makes sense.

Goodness, I think I might be in trouble if the next book isn't released in the near future...

And on that note, I'd best be listening to John Anealio a bit more.

Interesting Genre News

2010-05-13T11:43:00.003+09:00

Angry Robot Books, a relatively new SF/Fantasy imprint, is attracting my attention.

Lately there has been a lot of buzz about this imprint, and I'm liking what I'm seeing.

In their own words,

Angry Robot ™ is a new global publishing imprint. Our mission, quite simply, is to publish the best in brand new genre fiction – SF, F and WTF?!

Traditional SF and fantasy has been ploughing an entertaining furrow for many decades, but to our way of thinking much of it is missing a trick. To the new generations of readers reared on Dr Who and Battlestar Galactica, graphic novels and Gears of War 2, old school can mean staid, stuck in a rut. “Crossover” is increasingly the way forward and you’ll find plenty of it here, without batting an eyelid. New heroes and new settings, or maybe just reinventing the wheel, we’re not fussed – if there’s an energy in a book that gets us jumping up and down, we’re all over it.

(Complete information here: Angry Robot)

I'm reading a couple of their books (reviews will follow soon) and I LIKE what they're talking about here. Genre buzztalking aside, I like weird books (Tim Powers writing about beer and King Arther, China Mieville's Moths from hell, and so on) and Angry Robot seems to have a good grasp of not only WEIRD, but well written weird, and this pleases me.

Now, it looks like some big things are afoot over there. Again, in their own words:

Following an acclaimed first year of publishing, the revolutionary science fiction imprint Angry Robot Books has parted company with HarperCollins UK. It will now run as an independent publishing imprint, with the full backing of niche publishing experts, Osprey Publishing.

(See the full press release here: Angry Robot)

What does that mean? I have NO IDEA. Is it good? Is it bad? Will it help them? I guess that remains to be seen. But from the initial look I've taken at their catalog, I really REALLY hope they keep up what they've been doing.

And, in addition, I have gone and joined the Angry Robot Army!

I like the books, and they seem to want them reviewed, so I'll be reviewing them as I read more. So keep an eye out!

Things to remember: May, 2010

2010-05-06T13:56:00.002+09:00

It's been a dizzy month.

I'm such a creature of habit. Whenever any part of my daily routine changes I have trouble with everything else. So this month, with all the vacations and the work rearrangement and the twisted scheduling, was completely trashed as far as regular old life goes. It wasn't bad, not at all, but it sure wasn't normal...

Blogging, writing, all those little valuable things that I used to give up my time, went by the wayside. I just sat around on my downtime, watching back-episodes of "Fringe" and playing PS3. So...no good there.

I have been reading some good stuff. I finished the first book of the George R. R. Martin series I mentioned earlier, liked it and am now well into the middle of the next. I'm beginning to get the following...it's some very compelling character and world building.

I also read some good old free books on Gutenberg, and did a whole lot of nothing during the Golden week holiday.

We went to my wife's grandmother's house for a ceremony (her house is also a Buddhist temple, and she is the priest). It's refreshing, going there, because it reinforces the idea that Grandmas are the same everywhere--she always sends food home with us, and makes sure that we have sweets to eat and is, generally, grandmotherly.

May has started off slow, but soon it should be all kinds of busy.

And that's my beginning of May.

Kyoto...

2010-04-27T21:49:00.007+09:00

What a wonderful, lively, photogenic place.

Such a wonderful trip...my wife and I celebrated our anniversary there, and it was well worth three years wait.

The first day, the weather was just beautiful. Bright and warm...
Arashiyama:

Kinkakuji:

The second day, the weather was cloudier and rainy, but still worth the trip.

Kiyomizudera:

Only a couple of decades late.

2010-04-19T13:24:00.004+09:00

I grew up in Southeastern Kansas. There's not much I can say about it, it's a quiet rural place. And I was never interested in it, until now...

Recently I've been thinking about the landscape I grew up in. It's a flat place, not the mind-numbing flatness of western Kansas, there is some roll, some hilliness as the land rises toward the Ozark mountains of Missouri and Arkansas, but still smooth with a horizon that stretches forever. The sky is unbroken apart from the electric poles and the hedgerows...it seemed utterly unremarkable until recently. Now, living in Japan, the horizon is cut short by mountains.

So now, I look back with a little bit of nostalgia on those wide open plains. And what's more, I find myself contemplating the history of the place. A part of the landscape is an interesting phenomenon; in amongst the endless fields, you will find the occasional lonely hill, rising abruptly from the earth and coming to a broad flat top...utterly alien in that flat land, and upon reflection, very hard to explain. So of course, being the place that Kansas is, the explanation people found was "Indians!" (At the time, 20-odd years ago, "Native American" wasn't what people were saying.)

Most everyone believed, or at least said, that these must be artificial, and so the product of those people who had lived on that land before us. As I grew, I dismissed the idea as the result of hick ignorance (something that became a habit to a know-it-all college boy...) and forgot the idea.

But now, in my nostalgia, I've done some research about the idea, and it turns out to be utterly plausible. There are a large number of Native burial mounds throughout Kansas and Missouri, apparently made by people who populated the midwest as long as 2,500 years ago. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any way to tell if a mound is, indeed, a burial mound apart from digging into it--and I don't see that happening anytime soon.

So yeah, it's fascinating. Research is fun...

And if anyone can tell me about those mounds, I'd love to hear it.

Suspension of Disbelief....Failing...

2010-04-13T11:57:00.002+09:00

I'm a fan of "genre fiction", meaning things like SF, Fantasy, Alternate Histories, etc. This means, I choose (for the length of a story/novel/movie/etc.) to believe something that is not true. Some times it's easier than others...
One of the essential elements of writing fiction is getting your reader to trust you. You can tell a huge lie as long as it's told convincingly; you can make utter nonsense sound plausible, as long as it sounds good.

This is usually done by balancing fact and fiction--especially in something like science fiction, which SHOULD be an oxymoron. Science is all about facts, and truths, and things that people have worked very hard to test and check and prove to a pretty reasonable extent are true.

But sometimes, even in the realm of fiction, some lies are just too big. I mean, no matter HOW HARD YOU TRY you can't believe it. This might be the result of poor story telling, poor research, or just stuff that don't work at any level, fictional or factual. For example, the climax of Stephen King's "Insomnia" was utterly ruined because the hero talked about a scaly catfish. It was a FAKE catfish, not a real catfish at all, but...CATFISH DON'T HAVE SCALES. SO I lost all ability to suspend my disbelief, and the beautiful lie of fiction just became nonsense.

This brings me to something that has been bothering the hell out of me. There is an anime on Japanese TV called "Element hunters." My mother-in-law loves anime, and watches it without any apparent regard for genre, style or quality. This one just happens to come on at dinner time, so I am often forced to watch it...and this is the purest example of an utterly impossible lie to believe. I mean, from the VERY BEGINNING, I can not accept the premise of this story. Now, I know this is a cartoon. It's fiction for children, and of course, it should simply be accepted as nonsense, but...this is the limit.

Let's use the Wikipedia synopsis to explain:

In the year 2029, a large scale ground sinkage occurred in the Mediterranean Sea. Chemical elements such as oxygen, carbon, gold, molybdenum, and cobalt disappeared from the Earth's crust suddenly. The human population was decreased by 90% in sixty years. Researchers found out that the disappeared elements were drained into a planet "Nega Earth", located in another dimension. To save the Earth, a special team called the "Element Hunters" is organized. All of the members are under 15 years old, because young and flexible brains are needed to perceive "Nega Earth". As the story progresses we learn that the cause of the element dematerialisation was caused by a child shouting to the heavens "I wish the earth will disappear" this awoken something that was in the 11th dimension which has cause all the elements in earth to dematerialise and move to nega earth.

Wait.

Let's go over that again: ALL OF THE ELEMENTS HAVE DISAPPEARED.

All of them. And what is the result? The earth is dying off. NOT, as one would expect, the immediate and total absence of EVERYTHING. I mean...wow. I can accept a lot in fiction--A LOT. Talking trees, faster-than-light travel, lots of impossible stuff. But...I mean, come on. All the elements are gone? What the hell kind of idiot thinks that's a good idea? And you know the WORST thing? The show purports to be educational.

Educational! Because the theme song teaches kids the names of the elements...and indeed, my MIL can now name a lot of elements. But, while teaching kids the names, they completely and totally fail at giving any idea at all of what they actually are. Meaning....EVERYTHING. Everything that exists is made of elements, and nothing else. If elements disappear, EVERYTHING does. Good god. The stupid, it hurts me...

Any time people tell me that Anime is valuable as a cultural item, I will throw this in their face and then point at the inevitable fall in Japanese science test scores and LAUGH AND LAUGH...

Classic SF FTW

2010-04-10T22:43:00.002+09:00

I have to give a big thank you to John Scalzi.

He's apparently written a new book that's a reworking of an old SF novel, Little Fuzzy, written by H. Beam Piper. Piper is not one of the writers I'm rally familiar with, but when I saw Scalzi' post, and found out that Piper's work is in the Public Domain, I whipped out the old iPhone and downloaded the original . I LOVED it.

It's a fun story, not particularly deep, about a man finding cute, fuzzy, intelligent aliens and doing his best to protect them from the nasty company men out to exploit their planet...think Avatar meets the Ewoks. Though it was written in 1962, it's aged fairly well, though some of the passing "girl" comments touched off a wince or two. What I found most enjoyable, though, was how smoothly everything flowed--how naturally the characters acted and how much I CARED about them. I was enthralled by the fuzzies, and I found myself teary eyed more than once.

I went on to read more of Piper's stories this weekend. They ahve been without exception excellently written, engaging and enjoyable. Some of the stories do run up against the social changes we've encountered in the last 40 years or so (Uller Uprising, especially, stuck me as borderline tolerable in it's politics, but was so exciting in execution I still finished it).

So I unreservedly recommend you read some of Piper's work, especially Little Fuzzy, and hey--you can't beat the price.

Misanthropic

2010-04-08T15:30:00.003+09:00

I'm feeling against. Anti.
I can't say why but hey, it happens. People piss you off, the weather changes, you don't get enough sleep, whatever, and you just get out of it. So I'm out of it.

Part of the problem is that I honestly don't have a community. I'm fairly isolated here, I've got my family it's true, and that is a wonderful place, but nothing else. No friends, no drinking buddies, no bullshit pals. Just...my wife, and the net.

And the net is...the net. I haven't found a real community that fits me online, either. There are hobbies, but it seems like so many people in those hobbies just don't really match me emotionally or mentally. Too much ignorance, too much ego, too much aggression and petty little nonsense. It turns me off. I have no PATIENCE for it anymore.

It's not even a political thing, though that sets it off. It's just...people. Being dicks.

Of course, the response is to find a community here, with real people, but that's not much worse. The English speaking crowd here is even worse than the internet communities, a bunch of immature drunks. And the Japanese? Apart from the language barrier, there's the interest barrier. I have NOTHING in common with anyone I know. I despair of dealing with people.

I miss Andy...

To remember I: April 2010

2010-04-07T14:43:00.002+09:00

This month I am restless, tired and distracted. I can't think about the things I SHOULD think about, work and "serious" things. I am flighty and in search of something new and unique.

SO maybe I'll write a little, maybe do some more reading. And in order to prevent me from losing track in my madness, I thought I'd wake this old blog up. Good morning, old blog!

Speaking of reading, I'm reading George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones. It's an interesting read, but I can't see the mad fan nerding out it apparently inspires (leading, of course, to things like Neil Gaiaman's admonition that Mr. Martin is no one's bitch, and the like. But as I just started, perhaps I'm just not deep enough.

I'm also well into Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides, which is Tim Powers writing about pirates, zombies, and voudou...ahhhh, Tim Powers. I love that guy. The Drawing of the Dark is still one of my favorite books. Seriously, how many books are there that conflate Arthurian legend and BEER!? ONE, that's how many.

Work in Progress: April, 2010

2010-04-07T14:38:00.004+09:00

Singapore

“We sail tonight,” she said. She didn’t like me, I knew it. For that matter, I didn’t like me. I was a coward. Seeping fear and desperation, I was, and she could smell it as well as I. "It's too late to take on a passenger, and we don't need any new hands."

“How much?” I asked, for the third time.

I knew she wasn’t going to answer. I knew she didn’t want me on board, and that I would never be able to get away. Even now, I could see the monks gathering, whispering and plotting, sending out the black-robed temple guards to drag me to that dark pit gaping in the very center of their twisted, cyclopean temple. I didn’t want to go.

So I poured all the money I had out on the table between us, the captain and I. It was a lot. Chiaki and I (oh poor Chiaki, I’m so sorry…I hope they don’t take you instead of me. But if they do, well, at least it's not me.) had been saving a long time. There was almost enough to buy that bigger house we’d been looking for.

She looked at the pile, arms crossed, tapping a little tatoo on the tabletop, and eventually, explosively, sighed.

“Get your bag and get on board. Quick now, we’re busy. And you’re running, any fool can see that, so if you bring any bad luck on us I’ll slit your throat and toss you over myself.”

I didn't hesitate. I grabbed the little bag with what clothes I had managed to pack and sprinted to the gangplank, hoping she wouldn't change her mind in disgust.

On a Berlin Train

2010-02-12T11:56:00.001+09:00

I was on the train yesterday (the plain old train, not the big fast bullet train), heading into Hiroshima, and it made me all nostalgic.

I used to live in Germany, in Berlin to be specific, and I was the very definition of Dissolute Youth. I went to study, but spent most of my time getting drinking and going to punk rock concerts. A lot fo this ended up in bleary morning train rides home the next day.

In fact, most of my life in Berlin involved trains--Berlin's public transportation is exceptionally good,　and as a student I could use it for free and man, did I.

Done it!!!!!

2009-02-09T13:35:00.003+09:00

The move is over, for the most part. We have a new place, and though we aren't compleetly unpacked, we are now living comfortably in our spacious new place.

It was exhausting, and we put off packing until the last minute so it wasn't all that well done, but it was done. The movers worked their asses off, so I felt bad that we got such a low price--one guy carried our 100 pound air conditioner up four flights of stairs by himself. He earned himself twice his pay just for that....

As for the new place, here's the view from my PC chair...

Yep. The sea. Not two minutes walk. Could be worse. Yes indeedy.

Oh Wow...

2009-01-28T23:01:00.004+09:00

So, I DO have two blogs. Sorry about that.

There is news in the land of the Rising Jim...Lots of it. Maybe I should write it down...

Perhaps the biggest news is, my wife and I are rather spontaneously moving. As in, we are moving because my wife decided she wanted to live in the place she randomly found on the internet. Yeah. That kind of spontaneous.

To be perfectly fair, the place she randomly found on the internet is fantastic...4 bedrooms (one with full tatami matting), a huge living/dining/kitchen, walk in closets and a real live HALLWAY...all for less than $200 more than we're paying for our current matchbox. It also has a balcony overlooking the beach...So yeah, can't really complain. Except for the whole, packing up all our belongings and taking them across the street (did I mention the new place is across the street?).

We've found movers, so I don't have to carry our big-ass refrigerator down 4 flights of stairs and up another 4, which is good. It'll be nice when it's over, and we have our new sofa and kotatsu and TV all set up...And I have my own room with PC and razor workshop (my wife doesn't know about that one...).

Thngs will be good, I think.

In other news, my wife is becoming more and more domestic...she's baking bread now.

See?

I love it. Fresh baked bread filling the house with its homey scent...Man, feels like Kansas!

And, of course, there's the economic crisis that is threatening my work, but hey--let's stay positive!

Hot Lava!

2009-01-04T23:24:00.016+09:00

So I'm back from my vacation in Aso, Kumamoto Prefecture, on Kysuhu Island. Aso is a volcanic area, nestled in grasslands ripe for farming. And it's VOLCANIC!

We drove down in the new car, with my Mother-in-law, Brother-in-law and his daughter; it was a nice drive, made nicer by the car. Damn, I'm glad we bought that.

It only took a couple of hours, really to get in the area, and it is beautiful. Grasslands leading up to very dramatic mountains.
Here's the plain around the mountain:

It's dotted with cattle and sheep farms, and Aso Jersey Milk products are famous--got some great caramel!

Then there was the volcano. Aso mountain is an active volcano--not as in lava spewing around, but it tremors frequently and there is always steam boiling up from the caldera lake. Like this:

The water, when it was visible through the steam, was a brilliant blue-green. I wish we could have seen more, but the other three crater viewing areas were closed due to dangerous levels of volcanic gases. Sweet!

After the volcano, we spent the night at a very cool onsen. ON top of the classic hotsprings and Japanese style rooms, they had free Karaoke, free carnival events for the kids, massage chairs, gourmet dinners and wireless internet. Fabulous place...

And on the next day, we went to"Cuddly Dominion."

Yes, "Cuddly Dominion". Not "Cuddly Kingdom", oh no, that would make sense. Oh well. Japan.

So anyway, this place is a zoo famous for it's star Chimpanzee, Pan-kun, and his bulldog buddy James. They're on TV, and they really are quite clever. We watched their show, and the ladies played with some cats, and we watched a miniature pig race, then after an overpriced lunch we went home.

Oh, and we saw BEARS!

Enough bears to choke a moose...and tear its head off. These bears are cute, though, begging for food. And of course, this being Japan, the zoo capitalized on the cuteness of feeding bears and sells whole frozen chickens for people to toss to the begging bears...
Isn't that just so CUDDLY???

Also, for some reason, there's a fantastic temple in the middle of the zoo.

Inexplicable, but awesome.

Tis The Season!

2008-12-28T20:45:00.003+09:00

Ahh, winter in Japan. Not a snowflake in sight, and people lining up for fried chicken. I love it!

Tradition. Big word. It's hard to talk about tradition in Japan, because I can't tell the difference between tradition, fad, and habit--I'm in a prety isolated situation, here, and my wife is not necessarily a representative sample of Japanese society. BUT...

One thing I can tell you. A Happy Kentucky Christmas is the BEST tradition in Japan.

I can't tell you how it started for sure. Apparently, the story is that when KFC first came to Japan, it was Christmas time and their campaign cenetered around happy White People (tm) eating fried chicken in front of the Christmas tree. The campaign must have been very successful, becuase it resulted in two things: A very successful KFC in Japan, and a big equal sign between Christmas and Fried Chicken.

Japan now eats chicken on Christmas. Not just KFC--grocery store chicken, convenience store chicken, everywhere sells fried chicken. However, KFC is the big winner...people line up for hours, around the block. They buy $50 roasted chickens. They make reservations a month in advance for their Chicken buckets. (They..I should say We. I am a JOYFUL participant). And on the big day, they hire traffic contollers to guide thecars into their tiny, 12 space parking lots.

I'm making NONE of this up.

Chicken on Christmas. Yum YUM!

What The Hell...???

2008-11-25T09:22:00.005+09:00

From The Mainichi Daily News:
Is Us President-Elect Obama Really Black?

Read it. Just...Read it.

I can't even begin to....

AARRRHHHGGGHGHGHHHGHHGHHGHGHGHGHGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Theater of Cruelty

2008-11-10T22:10:00.006+09:00

I had this nice long post prepared, about how Japanese entertainment is essentially based on the idea that entertainers aren't really people--that they are slaves to their producers and are forced to do pretty much anything the TV stations want (Look up Nasubi sometime...).
I had points and different examples and reflections on what my wife calls the "celebrity tax".

I don't need it anymore.

Because I saw this:

Those are 1 and 2 year old children, racing with backpacks loaded with 2 kilos (4.4 pounds) of mochi.
People think this is funny, and they think it is cute...

I reckon they're just getting the kids ready to be a geinojin.

What a country...
**Update** Here's another link, that says pretty much everything I wanted to say.

The great reformation

2008-10-30T13:09:00.003+09:00

Man. We've been redecorating...and it sucked. But it's done, and I'm actually quite pleased. My back hurts, and my arms are sore...but our apartment is all spacious, and clean, and well arranged.
I also have a nice little desk, now, with room for all my little doo-dads and shaving goods and such.

The great travail is over, my friends, and I am back on top of my game.

This Can't end well, Redux

2008-10-19T17:37:00.006+09:00

There are persimmons rotting in my kitchen.

This is not, as might often be the case, an accident. Not a result of sloppy housekeeping or poor choices at the grocery store.

This is intentional.

I came home from work the other day to find a string of peeled persimmons hanging from the laundry rack in the middle of the kitchen (Space is limited, we make do as best we can).

I didn't say anything. I've learned not to question such things, as I know they will be out eventually.

So, eventually, my wife informed me that our neighbor (always a generous supplier of fruits and vegetables from her parents' garden--no small thing with Japanese prices) had given us some persimmons. At this point, the subject having been broached, I ventured a question.

"And, ummmm...Why are they hanging peeled from the laundry rack?"

"I'm drying them." Ahhh.. I knew that my wife likes persimmons a bit on the aged side--she only buys them from the grocery store when they've been marked down a couple of times and the fruit flies are starting to rub their tiny hands in anticipation.

"And why aren't thy hanging, say, by the window in the little alcove where I won't keep running into them and getting persimmon juice on my arm?"

"Because I need to see them!"

Of course.

So there are persimmons hanging in my kitchen until they get all wrinkly.

The problem is, they have been hanging there for three days now, and there are no wrinkles. There is a puddle of persimmon juice on the floor, yes, and a growing aroma of aged fruit. One of them has even sort of...melted...around the string holding it up, so that it looks like the the white nylon rope is springing out of the fruit like some kind of shish kebab. But no wrinkles.

So I hold my tongue. I will say nothing, not even when the inevitable happens and the fruit flies come and we tie the smelly mess up in a plastic bag and pitch it (the only alternative is too horrible to contemplate...). Why do I say nothing?

Because my wife is a wonderful, loving person, who takes care of me when I need it--which is all the time. Because even though we didn't actually say the words, that old stuff about "sickness and health, richer and poorer (daft and clever)" holds in our house.

Because she'd kick my ass if I so much as made a peep about the undoubted catastrophe that is coming to our kitchen.

Because I love her.

This Can't End Well

2008-10-09T13:15:00.004+09:00

Please, read this MDN article carefully, and see if you are as terrified as I am.

A Japanese robotics company is making a robotic suit to help increase the mobility of the elderly and physically disabled. A wonderful idea. Except that the company is called Cyberdyne, and the product is called HAL.

Seriously.

Am I the only one with images of screaming centenarians strapped into killer robot skeletons run amok?

Or do I just read too much SF?

Fat Men Can't Sit Seiza, Vol. 2: The Funeral

2008-09-25T10:57:00.009+09:00

AS has been mentioned, my wife comes from a very strongly Buddhist family. Three uncles are monks, and her late Grandfather was a high ranking priest at the Ryuko-tokuji temple. My first major encounter with my new family's religion was at his funeral.

Here's the story. (This is a long one...and kind of sad. But not too much.)

Not long after my wife and I first moved in together, her grandfather passed away. It wasn't unexpected, but it was of course a very difficult time. For me, however, this marked one of the strangest days I can remember.

If you have never been to a Buddhist funeral, they are really quite impressive. This one may have been more so, due to the man's status as a monk. Wearing black suits and dresses (only the older members of the family, or members of the order, wore Kimons), we went to the funeral home. There were flowers decorating the building, of course, and decorations with plaques form members of the community who had known the man all his life. Inside, there was a large altar, a stair-step arrangement of shelves of diminishing size. It was draped in white cloth and covered in lanterns, flowers, and statues of the Buddha. In the center was a large, black swathed picture of Tomomi's grandfather. In front of the altar was a small white box, about 4 feet long. Arranged around this were various bells, drums and incense burners for the priests to use in the ceremony.

Soon, the service began. We all sat near the altar, and the priests arranged themselves in front of the altar. They began to chant, beating the drums and ringing the bells. The family members, all holding buddhist prayer beads, joined in the chanting of the sutras, and I followed along as best I could. When the sutras were finished, each family member stood and went to the front, where a small pinch of crumbled incense was touched to the forehead and then dropped on a charcoal brazier.
It was extrememl;y solemn,and impressive, and above all funereal.

Then, it was time to take the body to be cremated.

We went to the crematorium. Everyone rode a bus provided by the funeral hall. The ride was long, and the beer I had drunk was starting to leave me, so I felt a little out of sorts.

The crematorium was in a beautiful little forest, on the side of a mountain. I was impressed, until I got inside.

And this is where things get...surreal.

The Crematorium lobby was a stark, echoing cave of a room. The walls were tiled in white, and the far wall had massive, iron doors set into it. Between the four doors were tiny, pathetic little vases with old, drooping plastic flowers. This was the only concession to the real function of the place--there was no further attempt at solemnity, or at addressing the fact that this was a place of mourning.

The coffin was set up to one end of the room. The guests all lined up in a semicircle around it, and the priest said another sutra. Then, we all shuffled past, lighting a stick of incense and putting it on the small white box. There was a plastic window in the lid, so family members could see the departed one last time.

Finally, when everyone had finished, out came the crematorium attendant. He was a huge, sweaty man, standing over 6 feet tall and dressed in an white shirt (unbuttoned to the third button) black dress pants and white sneakers. He loaded the coffin into the oven and led us to the waiting room.

We found cold, institutional seats in a drab room, a TV set high on the wall, and a vending machine. There was an attached Japanese style room with tatami mats and a low table, where the children in attendance promptly started up a game of cards, and the adults broke out the refreshments. I was sitting in a corner, trying not to attract attention, and trying not to think too much ("How long does it take to burn a body? Do I smell smoke, or is it my imagination? Why doesn't anyone notice how ugly this place is?").

Soon, my wife's uncle brought over a case (A CASE!) of beer, opened it up and said "Jim! Drink! For you!" and put an opened beer can in my hand. I tried to nurse it, but some kind of weird time warp saw me sucking down four beers in the two hour wait.

Eventually, the attendant returned, and then came the part I had forgotten about. The interment.

Back in the lobby, the remains were laid out on a metal gurney. It was the first skeleton I had ever seen, and in my half pissed state it was deeply uncomfortable. Then, they started handing out the chopsticks. If you didn't know, after a Buddhist cremation, the family takes special chopsticks and uses them to place the bones into an urn. Once everyone has done this, the closest relative then picks up the adam's apple and places it in the urn.

As the chopsticks approached, I started to panic. Not only was I not very good with chopsticks in general, I had been drinking, and these things were huge--over a foot long, and about an inch thick. I was terrified I would fumble them and cause a horrible scene.

I hung back, just wanting to watch, but my wife pulled me forward, and I took the huge sticks in hand. When it was my turn, I was numb. I kept staring at the bones, blackened and broken by the heat. Finally, I found a small piece and managed to get it into the urn without dropping it. I almost cried with relief.
When everyone had finished, and the adam's apple was in the urn, there were still bones on the gurney so the attendant put them into the urn himself.
(It gets a little gruesome after this. You're warned.)

Apparently, the cremation process wasn't as clean as I thought, because the bones were stuck to the gurney. The attendant had some trouble getting them up, so he got a large iron spatula and scraped the bones into a pile. Of course, a lot of them broke in the process, so he had to get a little shovel and a broom, sweep them up and dump them in. I just watched in shock. There was so little...ceremony to it. I really wasn't prepared for this.

The final shock was the lid. It wouldn't exactly fit, so...even thinking about it makes me a little ill...so the attendant took the shovel and the spatula and pushed the bones. They crunched and shattered and made room for the lid to go on.

The urn was sealed and wrapped and that was it.

We all went home and I was given a crash course in my new life.

The Terpsichorean Muse...

2008-09-19T13:49:00.007+09:00

I like music, I think I can say honestly. I'm not a huge music geek, but I've, you know, heard things. I love me some Tom Waits, and Beethoven, And Marty Robbins. I love it all.

But every once in a while I find something special, that flips my happy switch and makes the whole damned thing seem so much nicer.

Here're a few of those for me.

My Happy Songs. Let Me Show You Them.
(Warning, Youtubery ahead)

First up, we have the world's first Virtual Pop Idol (Ahhh...Japan) Miku Hatsune, with the Levan Polkka:

It just makes me grin like an idiot, is what it does. More traditional versions are good, too.

Next up is The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, with a whole hat full of WIN.

It hits me right about HERE.
Their gala version of Life on Mars is fantastic, too.

Last up--maybe my favorite song of all time.
The Gourds, with a little help from Snoop Dogg. (NSFW language)

Seriously. Epic, EPIC music.
(N.B. I just changed the video to get a better quality song. The video's retarded...just listen. Listen REAL GOOD.)
So how about you? You got any happy music?
Share!

Empire in Black and Gold, A review

2008-09-07T18:29:00.011+09:00

Well, I finally finished my copy of Adrian Tchaikovsky's (a.k.a. Adrian Czajkowski - What are you trying to hide?! Or are you just betraying your Polish heritage to play up the possible name recognition/familiar pronunciation the alternate spelling provides? HMMMM???) new Fantasy novel Empire in Black and Gold. As has been said, I won a signed copy:

(See, he even put a little wasp...But why is there a bird there? I don't think there's a bid in the entire novel...).
So, now's the time. My Review!

Patented, solid-as-a-rock three word review: Shoulda been better.
More than three word review:
Empire in Black and Gold is an epic adventure fantasy set in a unique world, with compelling characters, an exciting premise and convoluted story. Set in a place called the lowlands, our protagonists must confront a massive empire that has slowly been swallowing all the scattered lands of humans. Finally, the Wasp Empire is at the doorstep of the Collegium, a city of learning and technology, and only one man and a few of his students recognize the threat for what it is.
There's my book blurb.

Empire in Black and Gold is a fantasy novel that, right off the bat, tells you it's out to avoid cliche like the plague. No fairies here, no dwarves or ogers or dragons. No, this land is a lod of humans...kind of. The humans of the nameless world (first point against. What's the place called?) are divided into "kinden", rather than races or species. The "kinden" are all named after insects--we've got Beetle-kinden, Ant-kinden, Mantis-Kinden, etc.

At first, this seems like some kind of arbitrary naming system; like maybe the Wasp Empire just adopted the wasp as its standard, perhaps. Not so. It turns out (eventually, muddily--point two against. I'm still not clear how the insect thing works.) that the humans of this world have somehow melded with the giant insects who also inhabit it (yes, giant insects, which barely figure into the plot at all--point three against! Use the bugs!) and taken on some of their characteristics. The Mantis-kinden have long, bony spikes sprouting form their arms, deadly grace and bloodlust. The Spider-kinden are graceful, can climb up walls, and are adept at manipulating people and political institutions (just like spiders. . .What?) and the Beetle-kinden are solid, have a lot of stamina and are cunning artificers (Again...what?) This is a central element to the story--the conflict between the kinden is as important as the conflict with the Empire. In fact, in many ways it is more important. No, wait. In this book, it is the ONLY conflict.

I have to be honest, I don't even know how to begin reviewing this book. It's a muddled mess of a story. Actually, there isn't a story to speak of. The characters are always moving, and there is some kind of development, but the plot isn't there. There's no arc, just a straight line that somehow turns into a circle. The characters are introduced, the Empire begins to menace, the characters are captured, there is a daring rescue, the characters move somewhere else, there is another threat, it's handled, the book ends and basically says: Buy the next book to see what happens! (Did I mention this is a series? "Book One of the Shadow of the Apt"--and I won't even get into the "Apt" thing yet.)

It's frustrating because there actually is a lot of interesting stuff here. The bug thing, like I mentioned, has tons of potential, but is left utterly out of the story. Why are there people like this? Why can some bug people fly but others can't? Why are there physical manifestations for some kinden, like the spines on the mantis kinden, but not others? Explore it! And show us more bugs--don't just say "There might be giant mantids in this forest, be careful!" and not show us a giant freaking mantis!

And the history. . .there is so much history hinted at. The book takes place in a post-industrial-revolution world, and this was a real revolution. The world was once ruled by the magic-using Moth-kinden, with the Spider-kinden and Mantis-kinden helping, but they were overthrown by the "Apt" races--the Ants, Beetles, and Flies--who can use machines. So now there's all kinds of hate between the In-Apt (Moth, etc) and Apt. The Beetles are the strongest at machinery; they have flying machines, huge mining operations, repeating crossbows (WHAT?!?) and they are of course in conflict with the nature loving Moths, Mantis and Spiders. That sounds like some good story stuff. . .why not devote more time to exploring the history?

Of course, I can answer that--there's going to be more books. Gotta save some plot for the rest of the series! The problem is, I have absolutely no desire to go and buy the rest of the books. I just didn't care enough about the story. I mean, I actually can't identify the main conflict of the first book. There was no denouement to speak of. The characters did develop, which is good, but...fantasy needs plot. It needs some kind progression to keep the reader coming back for more. When the progress towards a clear end stops, the reading stops (c.f. the last couple of WoT books). This book only succeeds in introducing the conflict for further books to explore; there is no real conflict for the book itself. In the end, absolutely nothing has changed between the beginning of the book and the end, except that two of the characters have sex, one of the characters discovers that another is the father she never knew, and one of them believes in magic. The world situation continues, and the books conflict turns out, in the end, to have been meaningless.

I think that's the bottom line. I won't get into the ridiculous science (sniping flying enemies from a flapping-wing flying machine...with a BOW?!?) the impossible technology (repeating crossbows?!) or the awkward sex-scene set up ("I have a mystical way of helping you discover your untapped potential...IN MY PANTS!") and just say--it takes more than a good, original idea and an agreement to write a sequel to make a good fantasy author, Mr or Mrs Editor.

p.s. After finishing this, I decided to search out some more info on Mr. Tchaikowski. It appears he's a cartoonist and RPG game designer....and the next book is coming out. Eeep. Well, if I win another contest, I'd be happy to review it...

Oh, me...

2008-08-25T22:52:00.006+09:00

So I had a busy week. Meh. I hate, you know, actually working.
But now it's over, it's back to the grind, and I am now officially studying for level 3 of the JLPT.
I don't know why, my buddy over at Lost in Ube (By the way, thanks again for the application form) mentioned it, and I thought "Hey, why not." So now I'm all studying and stressing and stuff.

I mentioned this to my kind-of-but-not-really boss, and he tells me about his Chinese wife--she came to Japan 7 years ago, knowing 0 Japanese, studied three hours a day for two years, and took the Level 1 JLPT. She got such a high score she got a full scholarship to a Japanese University.

Two years.
I've been here for more than 4 and I haven't even taken the level 3.

God damn it.

Any study tips?

==============

I've been trying to make a dictionary for my Zaurus. There's all kinds of information about how to do this...in Japanese. So now, I am studying for the JLPT, learning to program in Ruby, writing several short stories, and learning how to make dictionaries for my PDA.
Any bets on which one I'll give up on first?

Yay, short attention span!

Did I forget to mention...?

2008-08-16T21:01:00.006+09:00

My story, "The Dueling Ground" was rejected by Abyss & Apex. Not a huge surprise...but the comments I received were puzzling.

The editor said " There's some beautiful language, but the opening has the character
pondering something that's happened, which means the story doesn't start
in the true narrative present."
Now, of course it was totally great to get a compliment like that, but...what, exactly, is the problem with not starting "in the true narrative present"? I've never heard of that before...
Hrmmmm.....

============

In other news, the Zaurus is taking over my life. I'm learning Linux, I'm learning Ruby programming to help me understand computers better, and I'm digging into the guts of the thing to figure out how it works. Oh man. Mild obsessions...story of my life.

A frustrating thing...the "grand open source community" is kind of hard to get into. There are tones of pages and sites devoted to the information, but they all have the same info, presented in ridiculously convoluted and/or illegible ways, and they all seem to pre-assume all kinds of deep working knowledge of the systems involved; there is no real intro, no newbie sites, no in-depth FAQs.

This is why Linux will never take over windows--in order to figure it out, you have to deal with other users....and there's no QA monitor making sure they can actually communicate in comprehensible English.

Come on guys, let's get it together!

(Insert clever title about cleaning here) with the Laundry!

2008-08-16T01:02:00.003+09:00

A while back I mentioned that I was reading The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross. That was the first novel dealing with The Laundry, a secret British agency dealing with threats to national security that fall on the more...esoteric...side of international espionage. And by esoteric, I mean "squamous and rugose", nudge nudge wink wink.

Since that time, I have also polished off the second novel in the series, The Jennifer Morgue (including the story "Pimpf"), and "Down on the Farm", a short story in the same world, available for free on Tor.com.
So, I figured it was time for a review--so here's a big ol' heaping helping of laundry for you!

Well, my (not really at all) patented 3 word review: Craptons of fun.
My More-Than-Three-Word Review:

First, perhaps a word about the "big idea." The Laundry books/stories are comic/dark fantasy/spy/action thrillers. The general concept is that all the major governments of the world have special secret agencies, blacker than the blackest CIA ops, that deal with security against demons, darkness, and the gibbering beasts from outside of time. They do this because, in the world of the Laundry, math=magic, and as computers=math, playing around with computing can summon up big nasties from other planes. And of course, governments don't like that kind of thing going on without their say-so.

The Laundry is the British version of this supernatural MI6, and the stories Stross has written all deal with a guy "named" Bob Howard, an agent/computer hacker/dark wizard (though the wizard bit isn't at all like you'd imagine) who is dealing with all the nasty business that can get stirred up when people dabble with higher math.
That's why I never studied calculus, people. Math is EVILLLL.
Anyway.

Basically, it's all about mixing tropes--Lovecraftian horror, cyber thrillers, spy novels, and good old fashioned action. The main stories, The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue are actually written with an eye to the styles of famous British authors: Len Deighton and Ian Fleming, respectively.

So, that's the big idea. So what about the stories?

Starting with The Atrocity Archives, Stross has created a persistent world that is perhaps more engaging, and more fruitful, than almost any in the comic/dark fantasy/spy/action thriller genre. Which, you know, might be pretty sparse, but still.

These books are a lot of fun to read, and as you go from one to the next you can see the growth of the characters, the maturation of the writing, and the deepening of the world right before your eyes. Apart from a bit of a boys club atmosphere in the first novel, the characters seem real, and likable, and all kinds of interesting. The plots move right along, and they lovingly play with cliche in ways that make you forget you've seen similar stuff before.

I can't really speak much to the parody/homage angle of the first story because I'm not at all familiar with Len Deighton's work, but the Bond stuff in The Jennifer Morgue is all kinds of cool. And even though it is forced within the story, it never feels forced to the reader. Very smoothly done.

I have only one real problem, and that pretty much evaporates after the initial reading of The Atrocity Archives--Charles Stross brings his vast computing knowledge to bear on the writing of this novel, and I do not share that knowledge. There's enough theorem name dropping to arm a Master's Thesis, and while I like the net, I don't like to take the time to fire up google to see if my novel is making stuff up or if there really is something called a "Dho-Nha geometry curve". Of course, you can still engage in the story and enjoy it without worrying about that kind of stuff, but it comes up. A lot. And it makes you wonder what you're missing out on when you don't recognize 60% of the names you read...or maybe that's just me.

So, in the end, try them out. They're lighthearted at times, thrilling at times, and almost always fun.

That's what I think. Maybe you don't agree. Wanna make something of it? Go ahead, comment.

Old Man's War, a review

2008-08-10T22:45:00.001+09:00

So, after finally getting around to reading John Scalzi's big breakthrough novel, I wanted to take some time and parse my reactions. Here's my review.

Three word Review: Mostly Kicks Ass.

More Than Three Word Review:
John Scalzi's 2005 novel, Old Man's War, shouldn't be anything new to you. After all, Mr. Scalzi has become a big name in SF fandom with his (highly recommended) blog Whatever, his reviews available at AMC.com, and tons more. He just won the Hugo Fan Writer award (Congrats to that) and he was nominated for the Best Novel award in 2006--for this novel. (He didn't win, but he did get the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer that year.)

So neither Mr. Scalzi nor his series-introducing novel are unheard of. Which leads to the question, why did it take me so damn long to read the damn book, dammit?

Timezones. Or the international dateline. Coriolis effect?

Dunno, but anyway, I did finally get around to it. And I really wish I had done it sooner.
Old Man's War introduces readers to a world Scalzi goes on to explore in further novels The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, and Zoe's Tale. The central conceit of these novels is that the Earth has begun to colonize the stars, and the forces charged with defending humanity's place in the universe against all the big, nasty monsters that want to eat us is essentially made up of old farts.

I say conceit because, actually, the idea seems at once compelling and yet utterly pointless; I'll get to that in a minute.

Old Man's War introduces us to John Perry, a widower from Ohio who signs up for the Colonial Defense Forces, and goes off to join the fight on his 75th birthday. In space, he meets a lot of new people, goes through a pretty cool rejuvenation/enhancement process, and kills lots and lots of aliens.

Along the way, of course he meets a girl (rather, girls) and of course he saves the day--this is a pretty heroic story, after all. But most of all, John Perry acts as our guide to the new realms of ideas Scalzi has opened up. We join him as he learns for the first time how humanity has beaten the galactic speed limit of C (i.e. it hasn't); why cute little deerlike aliens are never to be trusted (they like meat...); and how to kill inch-tall, spacefaring people (go Godzilla on their asses). Perry is our wide-eyed proxy, and he takes us on a hell of a journey. it's well worth the trip.

The book, and Scalzi's work in general, has gotten lots of comparisons to Heinlein, especially Starship Troopers. I think that's at least partially intentional, and completely fine. Nothing wrong with writing like a grandmaster of the genre, not even in reference to one of his less respected works (plenty of people think the work in question is pretty much a defense of fascism...but not all of them.)

There are similarities in the books--for example, the exploration of the effects of constant fighting on a person's psyche; the trauma of lost friends, and life after; the inevitability and necessity of war, and thus the nobility of those who sacrifice themselves in its service. But I find Old Man's War a much more fulfilling, and a much more readable, novel. The characters are more authentic, and the situations much more experiential, than Starship Troopers, mostly because any political content is in the background; this is very much an adventure novel, a semi-hard SF book, and it mostly rocks.

Of course, the book isn't perfect. It focuses a lot on the "Gee-whiz, them aliens is nasty" at the expense of arc, and the character development is incremental, at best. The thing that bothers me the most about it, and it really hardly bothers me at all, is that the whole concept of an army of 75-year-olds really isn't that important. At no point in the story did I think, wow, these guys are really different from all the other military recruit-characters in military SF stories. The kind of maturity, world-wisdom, etc. one would expect from 75 years of life doesn't really pop up at all...which, I guess, might have been intentional. The only time that this kind of history plays an essential role in the story is when Perry is describing his dead wife to another character--and, while this is essential to the continuing story (I guess...), it doesn't really need a 75 year-old; 30 year-olds can be widowed, too.

It just bothers me that the whole concept really isn't that essential to the plot, it's just a neat idea.

But really, there's nothing wrong with that. It, like other elements of the story, serves as an introductory point to this brave new world of Scalzi's, and the world is interesting enough, and exciting enough, to warrant the introduction. The continuation of the series, and its continued popularity and critical praise, is a sure sign that the depth that might be missing in this book is sure to develop; even if it doesn't, Scalzi's writing and worldbuilding are just too fun to miss.

In the end, I have to give this book a solid recommendation (not that it needs one from me) for one simple, but telling reason. Within minutes of finishing it, I desperately wanted to read the next book--I had to know what happened to John, and Jane, and the island of humanity in its sea of enemies. That hasn't happened to me since the first time I read Ender's Game, or The Eye of the World.

That's some pretty good company to be in.

All the opinions here are mine, and not yours. If yours are different, that's fantastic! Celebrate diversity! And take it somewhere else!

So very, very shiny.

2008-08-08T14:23:00.001+09:00

So I am now the proud owner of a Sharp SL-C3200 Zaurus PDA.
It's so pretty it makes the world bend around it a little bit, like a gravity well of shiny, touch screen goodness.
A singularity of Linux based enterductivity (see what I did there? Mixing up entertainment and productivity? Yeah, I bet you did.)
This thing...this thing...christ. I can't imagine why this thing didn't take over the world. It can do EVERYTHING a "casual" usuer needs! Word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, video and music playback, online capability (with a wireless card) and a metric crapload of potential. Sure, it's not the fastest thing in the world but the tech is already 3 years old--if they tried hard, they could make it all kinds of zippy.
And it fits in my POCKET.
In the three days I've had it, I've read three novels, a to0n of Manga, and practiced Kanji all in the palm of my hand.

Damn. I'm all tingly...

======================

Speaking of reading three novels, I finally got around to reading Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Seeing as how I've been reading his blog for a couple of months now, I figured it was about time, so I loaded the free ebook copy I got from Tor.com and read it in about 5 hours.
It's not long, but man, was it good.
Review shortly.

======================

Hypocrisy, (n), see George W. Bush
Yes, China, stop all those illegal detentions and torture and stuff. Cause, you know, America is WAAAAY better than China....

A subtle change of the wind, boding....?

2008-07-28T23:27:00.002+09:00

Hmmm. My Wife has got a new job, making essentially the same as I am. She will be working slightly longer hours, but the stress of her new job will be much less than her current one, and much more in tune with her interests. All in all, this will be a huge improvement for both of us. We will be saving more money, and still be able to travel and buy a car and all kinds of benefits.

Which makes me oddly nervous. I can see no negatives here, so my subconscious is making some up and not telling me about it.
Eeee, I hates it.

===========

Otherwise, life trundles along. I ahve been reading comcs lately, esp. Hellboy. I like Hellboy. He's a good guy, and not in the old fasioned comic book/hero way. he's the kind of guy I'd like to hang out and eat pancakes with.

Also, I have been listening to the "2001:A Space Odyssey" audiobook. It's a classic story, and I have seen the movie a couple of times, so I'm not too lost, but man...it's dull. DULLLLLLL. I get the feeling that Sir Clarke was all caught up in the birthing glory of space exploration, and wanted to spread his excitement rather than tell a story. I mean, wow...why, exactly, is it so important what they ate? And why is the action with the asteroid so important?

Maybe I'm just too stoopid.

===========

I still haven't heard from A&A in re: my story. Damnit.
What's a man gotta do to get some responses around here?
I know I should rewrite some of my older stories and get them in circulation, but man. I want some closure on this deal.

===========

I'm getting this. The wife said ok. And now that we're getting rich, it won't hurt at all.

Oh man. I am soo damned excited.

Hmmmm...

2008-07-03T22:29:00.001+09:00

So I don't know what got into me yesterday. Weird. Maybe I need to get more vitamins.
Anyway, I'm not taking it down--it's not so bad, I reckon, but hey...

==================

I decided to extend my tenure on the FSFHOWW. Maybe it'll help. I sure would like to get something published. I've been waiting for a reply from Abyss and Apex for a while. Come on guys!

Really, I need to stop screwing around and get my latest story polished and posted. It would be nice to get some help on that one. It has potential, I think. It's a Japanese Ghost Story. I would really like to work more Japanese culture and concepts into my writing, but it almost feels dishonest. I live here, but I'm not Japanese...but there's so damn much White Guy fiction out there already! Won't I just be propagating the White Male Hegemony by contributing to the surfeit of privilege with which we Caucasian Men are showered?

My Cup Runneth Over

2008-06-28T15:53:00.001+09:00

So I've been reading a lot. Reading books both good and bad--keeping them straight is a bit of a task sometimes. But mostly good; I figure, if I want to write, I have to know what writing is.

Right now, I am in the middle of:
The Atrocity Archives, by Charles Stross.
dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delaney
Down the Mysterly River, by Bill Willingham (this one is available for free on Wowio, but they are currently down for global retooling--so, you know, check it out sometime.)

I plan on doing a pretty detailed review of most of the books I read from now on; it's good brainwork. So look here for a review of the Stross book in the near future. After that, I'm thinking of doing a sort of cross-analysis/comparative review of dhalgren and Gene Wolfe's Peace. It may just be that I read them in close succession, but they seem to have a lot in common. In my head, they are taking on this antipodean relationship--opposite poles of the inner life of man in extremis.

--------

My productivity spurt continues apace, with more short story work and two critiques at the Online Writing Workshop for SF, fantasy and Horror. Where's all this coming from?
Where can I get more?
I really hope I can start posting novel chapters soon. I worry about it, though; I've not got the best attention span, and a novel is a big undertaking. Part of me wants to continue with short stories a while before I go for the big leagues.

Hrrrm....

Critters

2008-06-27T01:23:00.001+09:00

I'm from Kansas. we've got our share of little things crawling around...Grasshoppers, army worms, toads, turtles, snakes....tons.
But we don't have this:

It's a cute wee crab! I call him crabby. Of course....fast little guy, inne?

They're everywhere. I even saw a couple that wandered into a shopping mall...Guess that's what you get living less than 500 meters from the Ocean. Funny how I've never seen a mouse here.
------------------

In other news, I have suffered an enormous jump in productivity. I have, in the past week, written an entire Japanese Ghost Story, several pages of notes on a a novel and the beginning of that novel...
It feels funny. I am approaching a level where I actually think I might be getting good enough to publish. Knock on imitation wood...

Ummm...What?

2008-06-22T21:16:00.001+09:00

So, I was browsing around a bookstore, and I found...
This:

Fair enough...It's a dictionary of demons and devils. It's got lots of uses--Writing, Gamers, Demonists. Nothing wrong with that. But...
Take a close look at the left-hand side. As the saying goes, one of these things is not like the others...

Yeah. Martin Luther is apparently now a Demon and or Devil. Now...I wonder how that happened? I mean, unless this is a translation of a 16th century Catholic guide to the nastiest people on earth. What do you reckon? Some residual ancient Catholic prejudice? Hmmm...
I looked up the entry, but my Japanese isn't good enough to understand just what they were thinking, putting the father of the Protestant Reformation in a guide to demons. It did feature a nice picture of Old ML looking shifty eyed and nasty (I would have gotten a snap, but I was already getting nasty looks for snapping pics in the bookstore.)

I'm not even going to get into the MIB...

Of course

2008-06-22T00:54:00.002+09:00

The exercise I set for myself came to nothing; or rather, it came to an idea for an entire short story. Which kind of defeats the purpose of the exercise, but makes me happy nonetheless.
At this point, I have so many ideas and so few results. What's a boy to do?

Here's an idea: get off your ass and write.

My First Review

2008-04-26T07:23:00.002+09:00

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
This is the first time I've actually tried to write a review, so forgive me if I seem out of my depths. However, I thought I would give it a shot, seeing as how I got an advanced copy of the book and all.
Little Brother is the latest novel by Cory Doctorow, author of Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town; Eastern Standard Tribe etc., is a coeditor of the immensley popular weblog BoingBoing. This latest novel is the story of 17-year-old San Francisco High School Student Marcus Yallow, aka W1n5t0n. He and his friends are, among many other things, in the wrong place and the wrong time during "the worst terrorist attack this country has ever seen", and are caught up in the DHS's sweep during the immediate aftermath. The story is essentially that of how Marcus uses his computer savvy and passion for personal privacy and turns them into a crusade against the growing totalitarianism of the DHS in San Francisco, whose presence becomes increasingly felt in every aspect of daily life in the traumatized city. The events of the story, and the ways that they effect the characters are frighteningly plausible. People being harrased and even "disappeared" by the US government are, sadly, not the realm of Science Fiction, though thankfully they have not reached the proportions depicted in this book. They very well could, however, and this brings me to the real purpose of this book.
I think it is clear, and not at all a mark against the book, that Mr. Doctorow's main goal was to give young readers a kind of primer on ways to avoid, subvert, and counteract the growing surveillance culture and paranoia that are sweeping the US. It gives very clear guidance toward resources that can help readers not only get information about vital issues of privacy and individual liberties, but also take action to protect those very things. This is laudable and, sadly, ever more urgent. I hope that the readers of this book will take the lessons to heart, and follow the example of the main character in not allowing authority to become total authority.
But.
But, but, but...
The lessons given are good ones, but in many points they move beyond mere signposts and almost become polemics. The information contained in the story almost masks it at times, and the narrative suffers because of that shift in focus. For example, I was utterly removed from the story by a comment about Microsoft requiring "blood money" from game developers, and the extended discussion of "razorblade companies" surrounding it (p. 94 of my copy), true as the statements are. The hyperbole seemed utterly out of place, and the explanation felt more like a lecture than the internal monologue of a 17-year-old boy. Or the sudden lesson on Baynesian Statistics (pp. 109-11); given in the first-person, it felt totally out-of-place. They were important, I realize, but hard to swallow in the context of the story, especially as first-person narrative. I find it hard to accept that anyone actually talks like this, much less a teenager in the midst of such a catastrophic upturn of the normal order. The loss of engagement in the story is a pretty serious one, which in many ways detracted from my experience of the book.
Another criticism I have, and one that is less serious but still somewhat irksome to me, is the frequent surfacing of what I found myself calling "The World According to Cory".
I was a reader of BoingBoing for several years, and I found that many times this book (expecially in the first 140 pages or so) shifted into what might very well have been a digest of posts on that blog. We had the nuking of RFIDs (and frozen grapes); ARGing; fascination with Harajuku and the Japanese Teen Subcultures found there; a deep dislike of Micro$oft; Linux Love; TOR...in short, stuff I used to read about on BoingBoing (incidentally, the reason I stopped reading BoingBoing was the sudden, bewildering inclusion of M$ advertising within posts. WTF?)*. There's nothing wrong with that, per se, but a lot of the time I felt it really added nothing to the story (why do we need to know that W1n5t0n wears "ankle-high Blundstones from Australia"?), rather, it was a way for Doctorow to discuss the stuff he clearly feels is important and, perhaps more importantly, fun. I was honestly surprised that Creative Commons wasn't mentioned. Now, I happen to agree with Mr. Doctorow in most of his opinions on these matters, though I personally feel that Harajuku teen fashion is ridiculous. I just think that it made the book extremely difficult to immerse myself in. In fact, I had to force myself to read past these points, and did not actuallly care about Marcus/W1n5t0n until page 141. At this point, Marcus's mom tells him about how truly desperate his father was right after the terrorist attack, when both Marcus's parents thought he was dead. He finally begins to realize that other people are actually effected by the events going on around him, and he finally begins to seem like a real person to me, rather than a mouthpiece for the anti-securityasshole crowd (of which I am a member). 141 pages is far, far too long to wait to become engaged in the POV character in a novel, and I worry that if many other people have the same reaction I did, the truly important things that this book has to say will go unread. At the end of the book, I was truly glad I had read it, and I hope that others will take the time to do so.
I guess that in my final analysis of the book, I have to say that the first half or so felt to me too much like a series of lectures strung together by bits of story, and the last half was a well crafted, engaging and VERY IMPORTANT book.
But that's probably just me.

*See how jarring out-of-place commentary is?

[Edited for Jetlag Compensation.]

W.I.P.

2008-03-12T20:14:00.002+09:00

My current works in progress....

A steampunk/pirate novel set in a fictional world where the Great Old Ones are a simple part of daily life. Inspired by a Tom Waits song...huh?

A short story based on/adapted from the Old High German epic poem Das Hildibrandslied.

A horror story about death and deals and life beyond the grave.

A short story about Jesus and Oedipal rage,

And learning Japanese...

Shit, I get tired.