Obdormio.com

We did magic, in kindergarten. There’s no two ways about it. Oh, we didn’t say that we did, there was no system, no thought-out rituals or organised worship of strange deities or devils, but there was magic. Step on the wrong log, and you were cursed to die. Slit your thumb on the sharp rock, and you were safe. Dance in puddles to make it rain, sing songs to make the sun come out. If that’s not magical thinking, then I’ve misunderstood the concept. So, under the guidance of the Magi, the ones blessed with both active imaginations and a penchant for leadership, we did magic.

I never believed in Santa Claus, and I’ve never known anyone who did, but we knew, knew, that there were trolls in the mountains and elves¹ in the forest. Examining the mountains across the fjord through playground binoculars, we could see the trolls’ caves. And as for the elves, well, one of them would show up at least twice a year! A very pedagogically minded elf, he taught us not to litter in the forest. We knew, of course, that it was one of the minders dressed up with a wig and a fake tail, but it was also an elf. Both were there at the same time, the elf temporarily inhabiting the minder, who took the role of the shaman channelling the spirit world. There were elves.

And then, one day, there weren’t. It was just a minder in a wig. The log was a log like any other, and dancing in puddles only got your feet wet.

I suppose this is something that has to happen, but I miss the magic world, though by now I hardly even remember it. I think, perhaps, my love of speculative fiction comes from the search for those occasional books which, for a brief time, can put me back in that world. And oh, how I long to capture it on paper myself.

^{1 - “elves” is an imprecise translation. Don’t go thinking Tolkien or Tinkerbell. In Norwegian, we might call them subterraneans, and they’re not so distant from the trolls as all that.}

So, I’m sitting here, working on revising one of my papers for this semester. At least, that is what I am supposed to be doing. I am finding it hard to focus and am thoroughly tired of the topic at hand, so what I’m actually doing is randomly surf the web, open the window with the paper in it every ten minutes or so, then glare sullenly at it for a minute before going back to surf the web. It is in times like these I really get the drive to do loads of other things, things utterly unrelated to academia, even if they’re equally unpleasant! It is curious how clean and tidy my room gets as a deadline approaches. To forestall being driven towards the vacuum cleaner, I thought I’d try a little venting here instead.

It is a dark and stormy night, and yes, I am typing this with a straight face. The rain has been coming down at least since eleven this morning. I know this, as I found myself down town at the time, hearing the unexpected news that the bus drivers were on strike, and got good and wet on the walk home. The wind has been going for at least as long, making it impossible for me to keep the window open, resulting in a very stale air in here. Understand, this is Bergen. Wind and rain are not unusual, they are the norm. I usually enjoy good, stormy weather, as long as I’m not outside in it. Rain hammering against the window, wind howling past the wall, it is delicious. It is good weather for sitting inside with a book. Or a screen, as is more often the case these days.

And that brings me to the topic I actually had in mind when I started this: reading. I read a lot less than I used to these days, and I think that’s a shame. I got though a few this summer, but it has since died down again. I like to think it is a matter of just not having time, but the truth of it is that I could probably easily find the time if I just tried. Indolence and lethargy are both seductive and addictive, but hopefully I will eventually kick the habit.

For the past month, I have been flirting with another possible addiction, audiobooks. Fitting neatly into the times when I am doing other things, like making dinner or walking to the bus, they are seemingly the solution for this time issue. After first getting hooked by The Prestige through iTunes, I have now signed up with Audible (yeah, yeah, I know, evil DRMs and dead kittens. Show me an alternative, and I’ll jump at it). I’ll probably close the account once the introductory discount ends, though, I can’t really afford regular audiobook purchases.

Which leaves me the good, old-fashioned dead trees. There is a rather large pile of textbooks lying here, which should be ploughed through, but the going will be slow, if past experience is anything to go by. There is also a pile of books I’d rather like to start chewing through, but cannot in good conscience get started on before the stuff I’ll actually be tested on is done with.

These are metaphorical piles, though the state of my shelves will soon necessitate the forming of real ones, but I can have a look at which books I currently have plans to read someday through my LibraryThing account. I cannot talk that service up enough, by the way.

I currently have 28 books tagged with “to be read.” I might have forgotten to tag some, of course, but I’m going to proceed under the assumption that these are it for the moment. It is not a unmanageable number. I hear of people with hundred of books in such piles, and I dread becoming one myself as some of these have already been waiting years. I’m sure some will soon be added as well, like The Graveyard Book, and The Temporal Void. It is taking much restraint to keep from buying the large edition of The Temporal Void, but my desire for consistency in the shelves will prevail.

I am very much looking forwards to Misspent Youth, since Hamilton has yet to disappoint me. I’m also really salivating over the Holy Writ-books I got last year, but still have not read. I got books with texts from Shinto mythology, the Tao Te Ching, the Book of the Dead and stories of the Dreamtime, all of which sound so fascinating I can hardly understand why I haven’t thrown myself over them yet.

Come the end of exam season, I might get the frenzy bug again, like I did at the beginning of summer. Till then, I’ll stick with the audio books. I have a new Audible credit coming up in just over a week, and I’m pondering using it on Dune. Not sure, though, suggestions appreciated.

Writing this took far longer than I anticipated. I must return to the sullen staring. It’ll probably be OK, my invented schedule gives me the weekend to fix it. I’ll get started right away.

Right after I get something to eat.

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Stephen Fry is following 3,546 people, almost as many as follow him, so the chances of him reading any of my updates are nil, but even so, this put a good fright in me this morning.

Continuing the little break from Discworld, next up is the Absolute Sandman, volume 3, by Neil Gaiman.

This volume collects the Brief Lives storyline, where Dream and Delirium go looking for their missing brother, and the World’s End story, where several strangers are marooned in a mysterious inn during a reality storm. It also contains some short, one-issue stories, including the story Ramadan where the caliph of Baghdad sells his city, as well as extensive galleries and the full script of Ramadan.

Neither of the two longer storylines are among my favourite Sandman stories. World’s End in particular, I feel is on the weaker side, I don’t care much about the characters involved, or about their stories, which only become interesting when there are fleeting glimpses of the larger mythology of the series. Only towards the very end does something happen which is of interest to me, so it took me quite some time to get through it, I kept taking pauses and reading other things along the way.

Brief Lives on the other hand, is quite good. Though I say it is not among my favourites, this has more to do with so much of Sandman being extremely good than Brief Lives being poor. Possibly, the reason I don’t go nuts for it is that it heavily features Delirium, whom I’ve never quite seen the attraction of. It is an interesting story, not least because it finally introduces us to the missing Endless, and for its connection to the Orpheus myth. And, of course, it contains important set-up for the rest of the series. In general I quite enjoy stories where the mundane is invaded by the fantastic, so I’m not really sure why this one doesn’t sit so well with me.

Ramadan, however, is one of my favourites. It is a beautiful story, written to resemble a tale from One Thousand and One Nights, and though it’s been a while since I last looked in a copy of that, it seems to me a very good emulation of the style.

The writing here is superb, and aside from some of the one-shots in World’s End, so are the characters. The drawings are beautiful throughout, I have no complaints at all on the art. And seeing Death and Dream as children is practically worth the price of admission.

As for the extras, I don’t really have any complaints, but I’m not singing praises either. The many gallery pictures are pretty, but I’m just not the type of person who enjoys looking at that sort of feature for long. The script for Ramadan is interesting in its way, I suppose, but I’m not sure why I would read the story in script form when it’s available in full-fledged comic form just a few pages earlier. I did however enjoy the little documentary pieces on Sandman merchandise, specifically the Little Endless statues.

Ultimately, this has to be seen as part of the longer Sandman story rather than a work in its own right, I think. It doesn’t make sense to recommend the third quarter of a story to people, so I have to recommend Sandman as a whole. And I do. Very strongly. Sandman is a fantastic comic, and you are definitely missing out if you haven’t read it.

And if you have read it, and are wondering whether the over-sized deluxe edition is worth it, I’d have to say yes. Not, perhaps, if you already own the series, but if you’ve been holding off on buying it, this is what you’ve been waiting for. The book itself is beautiful; large, heavy and bound in leather, and looking just as mysterious and inviting as a Sandman book should.

Taking a short break from all the Discworld, the next book I finished reading was How to Make Webcomics, by Brad Guigar, Dave Kellet, Scott Kurtz and Kristofer Straub.

The title of How to Make Webcomics pretty much sums up what the book is about. It is not so much about cartooning per se, it assumes the reader is already familiar with the basics, and focuses on preparing work for digital distribution, and on the business side of webcomics.

Personally, I have no plans or desires for making webcomics, certainly not for commercial gain. I bought this book for the same reason that I listen to the Webcomics Weekly podcast by the same group - the creators are extremely funny people. The book, predictably, is more down-to-business in tone and has fewer of the hilarious tangents they tend to go off on when in verbal discussion, but I still found it entertaining.

Coming to it from that perspective, much of the first half of the book is not really all that interesting, being about drawing and image preparation and such things, but if you are interested in attempting to make a webcomic yourself, I think the information found here would be invaluable help for a beginner. Later chapters, about things such as web design, branding and monetising your work, a are more easily adapted to other endeavours, and so are of more interest to me. There is plenty of good advise crammed into this book, I was actually a bit surprised at how much ground it covered.

Each chapter is written by one of the four authors, but the other three will occasionally chime in with words of support or dissenting views via speech bubbles. This is my favourite aspect of the book, it is where it gets the most interesting, and most funny, as the authors debate, argue and joke about the topics at hand. In addition, regardless of chapter author, they have all written smaller sidebars on topics related to the chapter topics, which are scattered throughout the book. These are often quite interesting and funny as well, I particularly enjoyed Straub’s four points on embedding sound in websites.

I also quite enjoyed the “hot seat” feature, in which each of the authors present a couple of their strips for critique by the others. It is interesting to see professionals talk about things like these.

Speaking of strips, the book is littered with them. Series by all four authors are present, usually strips which relate in some way to the subject being discussed. As mentioned, these are extremely funny people, who all make very funny strips, and there are plenty of them in each chapter.

If you are interested in making webcomics, this book is probably a godsend. If you’re like me, without any ambitions of cartooning whatsoever, you will probably still find it an entertaining read.

Forging forwards, the next book on the list of recently read is Moving Pictures, by Terry Pratchett. Can you tell how I’m on a bit of a Discworld binge?

The standard disclaimer for Discworld books applies here. I cannot help but filter my impressions of any one of the books through my impressions of the series as a whole. Your mileage may vary.

Moving Pictures is about the rise and fall of the Discworld film industry. Alchemists discover how to make an illusion of movement through showing several pictures very quickly, and go off to set up an entertainment industry in the remote area known as Holy Wood. Unfortunately, Holy Wood is located in a spot where reality is a bit thin, so the burgeoning industry threatens to breach the barrier and unleash untold horrors upon the world.

This is one of the very few Discworld novels which completely failed to grip me. In fact, I think there are only two I can say that about. I didn’t care much about the characters, and those I did care about, chiefly because they’ve appeared in more interesting books, had only small appearances. The plot is all right, but for some reason, I never bothered all that much about what would happen next, a rarity indeed when the cover bears the name Pratchett. Only towards the very end of the book did I start getting curious, when the Cthulhu-esque elements began to play a bigger part. The only thing I can’t fault is the humour, which as always is fantastic, and was here the only reason I managed to get to the end.

And, of course, you’ve got to like the implication that Hollywood is summoning demons.

There are a lot of references to the real world film industry in this novel, from characters modelled on real people to the many, many quotes from various films. This is fun, of course, when you catch it. Much, much of it I only learned of when reading annotations later. Perhaps I would like the book better if I were more of a film geek.

Like I said, I don’t care about the characters, possibly because I already knew that the main pair were one-shots. As for the major supports, they happen to be some of my least favourite Discworld characters, so I suppose I’ve just struck out on this one.

I cannot very well recommend the book very strongly after this review, but I suspect it might be more enjoyable if read in the right order, not knowing what turns the story will take in later chapters. If you do happen to be a movie buff, his might well be your Grail, but for me, it was more chore than enjoyment.

Continuing the summer reading project, I have recently finished Mort by Terry Pratchett.

As with any Discworld book I read at this point, I must qualify my statements by noting that my impressions are inevitably coloured by the rest of the series. Mort is a book I actually read once before, way back in the murky depths of the past. This was when I first tasted Discworld, reading the short-lived Norwegian translations, and actually reading them in order. Needless to say, I recall almost nothing of it, so rereading it now, in the original English was pretty much akin to reading it for the first time.

Mort is the story of the boy with the same name, who has trouble fitting in on his father’s farm, on account of thinking too much. His father takes him to the market to apprentice him to some trade, mostly just to be rid of him. After waiting hopefully for most of the day, he finally gets a master just at the stroke of midnight: Death. As Death’s apprentice he must deal with dour butlers, haughty daughters, a world made entirely in shades of black, and also the the whole bit about making people die. Predictably, he messes up, and endangers the fabric of reality.

This is the first of the Death books, one of my favourite subseries of Discworld, but it is not one of my favourite books. It is one of the earliest of the Discworld books, and you can tell that Pratchett hasn’t quite found the footing that makes the better part of the series truly great. Don’t get me wrong, it is absolutely a good book. It has a plot which is interesting enough, sets up characters that you really get to care about in later books, and it is of course very, very funny. Pratchett could probably write a plotless epic devoid of characters, and it would still be utterly hilarious.

But however funny it might be, it feels off to me. Probably because I am so used to his later works. One thing that felt very jarring was when he suddenly referenced our world in the middle of the text, pulling me out of the story. Again, it is quite possible this wouldn’t have bothered me at all if I wasn’t used to the style of the later books, but there you are.

Notice how I said it sets up characters you get to care about later? They too seem off to me in this book, they have also not yet found the mould which will make them fantastic. Death in particular seemed to be more of a rough sketch of what will become the true character in later books. Mort himself is entirely forgettable.

This is a book that should probably be read early, while you are new to Discworld, so that the changes in style will seem gradual rather than jarring. Having read and loved the later Death books, this one actually kind of disappointed me. Coming to it with the right expectations might make all the difference.

My Summer Reading Extravaganza (now with it’s crappy own logo) marches on, as I have just finished Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett.

It is hard for me to review any Discworld book as a single work, and this book in particular will be difficult. I’ve pretty much read the Watch series of Discworld books backwards, which is no way to do things, I know. Rather than following Vimes from the gutters to the top, I started reading where he already was on top, and have now, finally, read of his beginning in the gutters.

Guards! Guards! follows the sorry remains of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, specifically the Night Watch, as the city is attacked by a dragon. The City Watch has dwindled into insignificance since the formation and legitimisation of the Thieves’ Guild, and at the beginning of the book, the Night Watch consists of just three members, led by the alcoholic Captain Samuel Vimes. For the first time in recent memory, a volunteer has joined the Watch, a young dwarf from the mountains called Carrot, who disrupts the life of the city by going around arresting people and enforcing laws. To make life even more interesting, a secret cult is summoning dragons as part of a plot to overthrow the Patrician and install a king.

Like I said, it is hard for me to review this as a work unto itself, I can’t help but filter my impressions through all the other Discworld novels I’ve read. Would it be as enjoyable without the love for the series and the world already established? I’m inclined to think: yes.

Pratchett is a master with the language. Watching a wordsmith like this play is pure entertainment. In addition to his firm grasp on the language, he is also a master satirist and humourist. I have yet to read a book by him that isn’t hilarious, and this one caused me to break down in laughter at several points. Some of his earlier books are heavy on the laughs and lighter on the plot, but this isn’t one of them, and remains suspenseful as well as funny.

As for the characters, I’m slightly at a loss. Having read backwards, I know how many of them turn out, and am not entirely able to tell whether I would have cared much about them if I read this cold. I suspect I would, Vimes at least is interesting whatever he does, though maybe somewhat less so here than in later books. Other characters are definitely well painted, such as the awesome Lady Ramkin.

Ultimately, it is hard to recommend any one Discworld book, they are all so intertwined and building upon each other (and yet, somehow, also completely able to stand alone). Having read the others makes this more enjoyable, but having read them in order would have made the others more enjoyable still. I cannot do anything but recommend it to everyone, though I would also recommend starting the series from the beginning if you haven’t read Discworld before.