Posts? Me? Too much work at the moment, I'm afraid. I've been deep into the day (and now night) job since Saturday and desperately need some downtime. However, it could be worse. The West of Ireland is drowning in yet another once-in-a-hundred years flood.

Luckily, we stayed dry here and were entertained by the friends of Jack Vance and the son of David Bowie.

Often despair and disappointment await us on the far side of our hopes, but not this week! No sir! Here are two non-letdowns of the highest order:

Songs of the Dying Earth -- an anthology of Vancian tales. Many of the stories really, really get the tone just right: bleak, black, articulate, autistic humour mixed with picaresque, baroque adventure. Great stuff!

How Princess Diana murdered a saint

I remember chuckling at my screen around the time when Princess Diana died. Oh, it's not because I enjoy others' misfortunes. Far from it! She had two young boys and to them it must have seemed like the end of the world. But COME ON. Our neighbouring island went through a period that can only be described as mass hysteria on a scale that would have impressed a mob of medieval villagers wondering why their milk had gone sour and why that lonely old lady had warts.

The bit that really had me bursting my sides was an announcement on BBC a few days later about the death of Mother Theresa of Calcutta:

NEWSREADER: "And some say, she [Mother Theresa] died of a broken heart." I.e. after decades surrounded by indescribable misery and suffering, the death of some foreign celebrity was simply too much to handle.

I repeat: OH COME ON!

How Henry Poisoned a thousand lives

I bring this up because at this very moment, we in Ireland are going through our very own hilarious "tragedy". Basically, our soccer team lost out to France in a bid to qualify for the upcoming World Cup tournament in South Africa when one of the French players cheated and got away with it.

This has unleashed a wave of what can only be described as madness with talk of introducing "Freedom Fries" all over again along with boycotts of French wine etc. etc. I mean, it was wrong when the US neo-cons engaged in such talk. They were in a snit over the fact that the French wouldn't support an illegal war of aggression. But that was more understandable because war, justified or otherwise, is always a serious business.

But sport? I mean, really. COME ON!

Except...

This morning over a lovely cup of coffee, I was reading the newspaper and having a laugh at the expense of the bitter comments of our soccer fans. Threats about what they'd do to Henry if they met him; "forgiveness" for the French people who overwhelmingly feel sympathy for Ireland's plight; bluster; tears; fists shaken in the direction of uncaring gods...

And then I came across one particular quotation that froze me to my chair. I can't remember it exactly, and the paper has already gone into the recycling bin, but it said, roughly: "Losing a game is one thing, and that's fair enough. But it's different when you've been cheated out of it..."

You see, although I like to play sport, I care about it in the same way I constantly worry about celebrity A's expanding waistline/sinking love-life. That is, not at all. I'm a defective man -- the little gene sequence that allows me to tie my own sense of self-worth in with that of a football team just isn't there. But once upon a time, a good fifteen years ago, I myself was cheated out of something that might genuinely have transformed my life. Now, I won't go into "The Tragic Story of Peadar" in a public place like the internet. What I will say, is that being cheated *is* different from simple loss. It leaves a stain of bitterness that in my case took a decade to erase.

Therefore, I apologise to the sports fans of Ireland. I don't feel your pain, but at least now I think I'll be able to control my laughter. Your prize is nothing to me and mine would have meant nothing to you either, but the ability to feel injustice, unites all of humanity -- we couldn't have civilisation without it.

But please don't push me too far... Or *French accent* I shall have to taunt you again. Prenez la vache!

A Time For Friendship

My friend -- yes, smart arses, I have one of those now. Unlike some of the cheapskates who hang out here, I paid for an upgrade from 'acquaintance'. And worth every penny it was too! Sure, you can make friends. But who has the time? And they never taste chat as nicely.

Anyway, this friend of mine works at a place we shall call for now, COMPANY A. He had a tale of woe, which I shall impart to you forthwith.


A Tale of Woe

Riddle me this, oh wise ones -- sayeth the friend.

Company A runs a massive factory. It hires in a giant catering company (known to its slaves as 'B') to run the canteen facilities. All the canteen facilities. The workers have no choice of where to feed, because the giant factory lies amidst nothingness wherein no other shops nor fooderies are to be found. The quality of the eating, the service, the pricing would have driven back even the Mongols.

The distressing part, is that nothing... will... ever... make it better. Nothing.

Why? Because Company A enjoys the monies Company B is paying for the right to outdo Mordor. And so, although A profits, it still gets to pass all blame onto the caterers.

Short of an outright rebellion in a non-unionised facility, how, oh wise ones, how are matters to be improved?

FUTURE FAIL

This is a sequel to an earlier post of mine, but I assure you, dear reader, I have written it as a standalone, so you should be able to follow along without having to click on the link. Happy? Good! I knew you would be.

As I said before, we Westerners, and more specifically, native English speakers, are so spoiled by our position at the top of the cultural food chain that we often forget little facts such as: it was not always thus. And more importantly: it will not always be thus.

But all of that is so last week. Let's move on.

This time around, I'd like to present to you two books that stick in my mind as being interesting exemplars of each end of this spectrum. Now, I enjoyed *both* of these books a long, long time ago. Therefore, what I will be describing in this post is only my idealised memory of them. I hope the authors' fans will forgive my clumsy trampling of their works.

Book 1is Illium by Dan Simmons

WHAT I REMEMBER: There are two robots who know all of human literature. All of it. From every country and every language and culture. Robot A has used its superior functions to figure out that Shakespeare is the greatest writer who ever lived. The other robot -- slightly less sympathetic -- has decided that Proust is the greatest.

Book 2 is A Million Open Doors by John Barnes


WHAT I REMEMBER: In JB's future history, Alien invaders replace all human cultures with that of the conquerors. Centuries later, when humanity is free again and ready to send out colonies, they decide to base each colony on some ancient human civilization or ideal. Thus you get Commie planets, Religious planets, Puritanical ones etc. etc. They also decide to base three of the colonies on so-called literary cultures. So, they looked through all of Earth's history to try and decide what the three greatest literary traditions that humans ever produced were. One was the Troubadour culture of Provence in the 11th century*; one was a civilization from what is now Sri Lanka. I can't remember the third, but it wasn't European either.


MATTRESS FAIL

So, we got a new bed. The most expensive we could afford with a mattress that should protect from further morning back pains, from tosses and turns, from ominous creaks.

Some guys delivered it and I had a good chance to see how bloody enormous the thing is. These were strong lads, but they sweated and puffed for their money today, I can tell you...

Later, I had to put the bed together. I had the mattress up on its side and when I tried to manoever it, it began to topple forward and it took every ounce of panicky energy in my body to stop it falling on me. Which was vital, because, and I'm not joking, I would be dead now if that had happened. Or at least trapped for a few days, until the Nork, with nobody to feed it found me lying there. As I said, dead.

Bloody hell! Imagine the story that would have made for the local paper. "It was just like the plot of one of his own stupid SF books..."





*I'm not going to cheat by looking it up, so I may well be very, very wrong.

Here are the top ten best selling SFF books on Amazon so far in 2009. In my constant efforts to better you, I will ignore the titles for now and print simply to pertinent information for those wishing to make their fortunes as future writers:

Book 9 in a series
Book 11 in a series
An original hard cover
Book 11 in a series
Book 4 in a series
Book 2 in a series
Book 7 in a series
Book 5 in a series
Umteenth book in a series
A sequel -- the beginning of a new series?

10 points if you can figure out the secret of success. Bonus points if the book you're intending to write is a paranormal romance. Go for it! I'll be watching...

It's interesting how few people post or comment once the weekend rolls around. And interesting too, how I'm always here to witness the tumbleweed blowing past :-) But I do have a life that goes beyond the writing and the moaning and the shovelling of food down a bottomless gullet.

For example, last night I went to a comedy club for the first time in years. I laughed and laughed until there was a small puddle beneath my seat. How wonderful that my little country is still producing some great comedy talent! But a question remains: why did I stop doing this regularly so many years ago? I know the answer to that, or several answers anyway. They're not important. What matters is that I'm already planning to go back again soon.

I can't wait!

I had a great time and the George R. R. Marting book signing last night. There was a massive turnout, which was only fitting, and the meet-up afterwards was relaxed and fun.

I don't own a camera and I learned nothing especially new about the HBO pilot of A Game of Thrones, so I'll say no more about that for now. The good news, is that Octocon should be huge next year and that's got to be great for Irish fandom.

( Intolerance Diary Week 2 below the cut. )

I always have a hard time trusting in the sincerity of singers when they're not performing their own songs. I know this is stupid: it's tantamount to saying that a person can't have an emotional reaction to a novel they're reading unless they've written it themselves. It's like saying Jeff Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's masterpiece "Hallelujah" can't and won't break your heart.

For me, a successful piece of art is one that elicits a genuine emotional response. While cover versions can sometimes do that too, they create one more layer of abstraction between the person who experienced the original joy or despair and its intended target. Each layer inevitably leaches energy and weakens the final impact.

Unless, of course, the performer, like some of the great actors, can make of herself an empty vessel to the point where she can feel the emotional impact again, and for real, before blasting it back out into the world.

I learned long ago, in my efforts to get along with normal people, that I have to, positively have to, stop making puns. It worked. Sort of. Sometimes the people I talk to think me a little distant, but I can't help that. It's just that I have to juggle two conversations at once: the real one, where a very nice person is telling me about her cat; and my internal monologue -- a tickertape running across my mind, processing every word she says and turning it into a schoolboy's double-entendre or a failed joke.

It's pun after another in there, I literally have to choke them down. I am not the Smashing Pun King. That is *not* who I want to be...
( Future Fail )

The next issue of Black Gate, number 13, is well on the way. There'll be tales from James Enge, Jay Lake and the soon to be huge Martin Owton*. Here's the cover. It reminds me of the various Frank Herbert covers of my distant youth**.


*Not a reference to his diet regime.
**Not a reference to any runaway slaves.

On the tiny, minisculiest chance that somebody in Ireland reading this is not aware, or has forgotten... George R. R. Martin will be having two signings this week in Ireland. The first will be at 1pm on Tuesday 3rd November at Easons in Belfast. That's the one to catch if you can, since there's a good chance that members of the cast of the Game of Thrones pilot for HBO will be turning up too...

The other one, at Easons in Dublin on Thursday at 5pm, will see yours truly lining up with everybody else to buy a copy of Songs of the Dying Earth.

See you there?

Here's the thing... Or 'a thing' anyway. Something.

Brandon Sanderson has just released the twelvth volume in Robert Jordan's epic, The Wheel of Time. It's been four years since the previous installment, so fans will have quite a lot of catching up to do before they can read the new one.

Just think about it: thousands upon thousands of the best customers for fantasy books in the world are all going to drop everything else in order to read eight or nine thousand pages of their favourite saga. The market will collapse and there'll be a similar "readers' strike" -- although slightly longer to take account of the fact that the fans will have even more books to get through -- when the *next* volume comes out.

I feel faint... Not even the cover (see below) can save us:



Disjoyment Strikes Again

Last night, I just gave up on a 400 page book less than 40 pages from the end. Oh well. Onwards and upwards!

I've just completed draft two of my near future/dystopian/detective story, Eat the Drink. It's gone now, flying over the Atlantic to where my two first readers are sharpening their claws. Am I happy? Ask the bears...

Next step, curiously enough, will be draft three, but not until I get a bit of feedback. That draft, if I'm happy with it, will go to my agent, hopefully before the end of the year.

Right in the middle of cooking a new pumpkin dish, our power went out and stayed out for 5 hours. For a while, we sat around the telly, slapping it and begging it to wake up. The usual stages of grief followed, but finally, we had to admit that our modern lifestyle had died. What were we to do? Well, we did what our ancestors did -- we went and visited our neighbours. We played cards by candlelight and exchanged gossip. Tradition was flouted however, when pizza was delivered.

Writer Hank Quense is a good friend of mine -- we've been critiquing each other's stories for years. He's come up with this idea of interviewing each member of the Critter Litter writing group and I'm up this week. Read it and weep!

Oh, and thanks, Hank :-)

Some diaries, personal diaries, need a good friend-locking if only to keep them from boring the pants off your audience, and believe me, I can think of better methods of seduction. But yes, today's post has been brought to you lock-free because there is a very small chance it might benefit somebody stumbling across it.

For the last ten years, I have been suffering from a wide variety of mild, but annoying symptoms. Everything from psoriasis, to headaches, to joint aches, to random itches and twitches and barely controlled fireman dashes to the nearest toilet. Hooray for non-life threatening annoyances!

A dull quest to determine the cause or causes ensued. I won't go into the disappointing details. Needless to say, I've been checked out already for the really dangerous stuff. I've had tubes where no tubes should go. I know captain Kirk would have been proud.

In the end, I read a book about arthritis that suggested I get myself checked out for food intolerances and the results came back today. For the next twelve weeks, I, Peadar Ó Guilín, will be avoiding:

Dairy products -- including pizza, ice-cream, cream, yummy butter, cappuccinos and all of that other great stuff that makes life so worth while -- cheese. Oh, God.

Beef -- including lasagne, bolognese, that amazing bourgignon I made last week. Sob.

Yeast -- a minor ingredient in THOUSANDS of products. I'm grateful, at least I don't drink beer! Oh, and then there's almost every kind of bread, pastry, muffin, donut...

Cumin/Coriander -- What!!! You're saying I can't have any Indian food? Are you insane? You must be insane!

Maize -- sweet corn, corn flakes, almost every single food product made in the Americas. Many of the bread alternatives that don't contain yeast (see above). Gaaah!

I'll calm down. I will, I will... Anyway, most people with food intolerances are supposed to see an improvement after about 20 days. I'll let you know if I'm one of them. Tally ho! I'm off to eat a cardboard box -- a yeast free cardboard box.

ETA: a link to the lab that doth do blood tests to discover one's intolerances.
ETA x2: I have found a very hard-hitting article that more or less calls the whole YorkTest thingy an expensive hoax. Nevertheless, I'm in there now and I'm going to pursue it for the 3 months. One of the things the article particularly warns against is the urge people have to think themselves a little better. Maybe so we don't feel like such fools. We'll see. I'll try to be dispassionate about the whole thing and report the results as honestly (with myself) as I can.

I've read quite a few books lately that use first person narrative. Many of them have been really poor, but I like the convention, particularly because it gives the narrator lots of opportunities to show his or her personality, to tell anecdotes and, even better, to go all snark and wisecracky*. A few of the finer examples are Taltos by Steven Brust, and my current read, The Devil You Know by Mike Carey.

TDYK has had me sniggering quite a lot over the last few days and contains an army of delightfully drawn characters. But so far, due to busyness, birthdays, visitors, illnesses, TV and pizza, I have yet to get to the end. More soon.





*Another necessary new word. And no, "witty" is *not* the same thing.

No news today. I'm sorry, there just isn't. If anything, there is a bit of anti-news: yesterday I saw my first copy of Songs of the Dying Earth in the wild. This brand new anthology of stories edited by George R. R. Martin is set in that amazing vision of the future that is Jack Vance's Dying Earth. I cannot wait to read it. Most of the stuff I've struggled through lately has failed to engage me, but if anything is likely to bring back that spark of enthusiasm, it's a bunch of great writers bringing one of my favorite settings back to life.

So, did I buy it? No, I did not, thus committing an act of anti-news. Instead, I will be waiting for November 5th when grrm himself will be signing in Dublin. I'll get a fresh one on the day and report back here immediately.