pedanther

. For the July random book challenge (a book in the genres of Feminism and/or Science Fiction), I'd selected The Female Man, but then proceeded to spend a fortnight not reading it. Then I saw that the local library now has all three volumes of Claire North's Ithaca trilogy, which retells the end of the Odyssey (as well as the fates of Clytemnestra and Helen) from the viewpoint of the women involved, so I read that instead.


. The themed book challenge for August was "a book that has something to do with schools or education"; I read Down with Skool!, a book from the 1950s that purports to be an account of school life written by a schoolboy named Nigel Molesworth, he of the famously individualistic approach to spelling and punctuation. It used to be highly regarded, but although I got a few laughs out of it I suspect it works best for people who have themselves survived the kind of school being described and aren't standing at a distance going, "Wow, people just used to do that, huh?"


. The random book selection for August came from books labelled Medium- or Fast-paced. My selection was The Tesladyne Industries Field Guide, a tie-in to the Atomic Robo comic book series, containing essays on such useful topics as What to Do If You Meet Your Evil Twin, The Best Ways of Fighting Genetically-Engineered Dinosaurs, a separate essay on one specific dinosaur who's a recurring character in the comic and an exception to all the usual rules, and Time Travel Is Impossible But Even If It Isn't Here's Why You Shouldn't Do It. "If you really want to change the present, the best time to act is now."


. The themed book challenge for September was "a book with a one-word title or a collection of short stories"; I read He Do the Time Police in Different Voices, a collection of parodies and pastiches by David Langford. It's a mixed bag; the works collected were written over a span of more than three decades, and many of the earlier ones haven't aged well at all. The later works are better, and it ends on a high note with a story in which a detective who definitely isn't Nero Wolfe solves a series of murders that may or may not have been done with the Evil Eye, but I wasn't sad to be seeing the last of it.


. The instructions for the September random book selection are to sort the to-be-read list Z-A by author, and then read one of the first five books on the list. This turned out to produce several dilemmas on the subject of how literally to take the instructions; for one thing, the first three books on the resulting list were by authors who the system had decided came after Z in the alphabet (one was by a Lebanese author and had been sorted on her name in Arabic, and the other two were by de Lint, Charles). Then three of the next five were sequels I'm not up to yet, and four of those five had been sorted by an illustrator, Michael Zulli, but strictly speaking the actual author of the four is Neil Gaiman. I haven't decided which book I'm going to read yet, but I currently suspect I'm going to keep discovering technicalities until I can justify reading Timothy Zahn's Cobra.

Fiction books
Lionel Bart. Oliver!
Lois McMaster Bujold. Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (e)
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener. Atomic Robo and the Ring of Fire (e)
T Kingfisher. The Raven and the Reindeer (e)
Tim Powers. On Stranger Tides (e) (re-read)
Manly Wade Wellman. The Beyonders (e)

In progress
Terry Pratchett. Soul Music (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books in progress
Harley Granville-Barker. Prefaces to Shakespeare: Hamlet

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
William Shakespeare. Hamlet

Fiction books
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener. Atomic Robo and the Knights of the Golden Circle (e)
L S Lawrence. Horses for King Arthur
Andy Weir. The Martian (e)

In progress
Kim Newman. The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School (e)
Terry Pratchett. Men at Arms (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books in progress
Jung Chang. Empress Dowager Cixi

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Anthony Price. The '44 Vintage

Fiction books
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener. Atomic Robo and the Deadly Art of Science (e)
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener. Atomic Robo and the Flying She-Devils of the Pacific (e)
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener. Atomic Robo and the Ghost of Station X (e)
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Dragon in Exile (e)
Terry Pratchett. Small Gods (e) (re-read)

In progress
Terry Pratchett. Lords and Ladies (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books in progress
Jung Chang. Empress Dowager Cixi

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Terry Pratchett. Men at Arms

Fiction books
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener. Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness (e) (re-read)
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener. Atomic Robo and the Shadow from Beyond Time (e) (re-read)
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Dragon Ship (e) (re-read)
Tamora Pierce. Cold Fire (e)
Terry Pratchett. Witches Abroad (e) (re-read)

In progress
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Dragon in Exile (e)
George MacDonald. The Princess and Curdie
Terry Pratchett. Small Gods (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books
John Scalzi. The Mallet of Loving Correction (e)

In progress
Jung Chang. Empress Dowager Cixi

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Matt Fraction, Christian Ward. Ody-C volume 1

1. Tim Powers has been one of my favourite fantasy authors since I discovered his 1983 novel The Anubis Gates, which features time travel, romantic poets, and a serial killer who's rumoured to be a werewolf but is actually something even more peculiar. Last year, he returned to that setting with a novella called "Nobody's Home", which expands on the backstory of the novel's main female character. I got hold of it recently through a limited-time ebook offer on Humble Bundle, which was a stroke of luck because it seems to otherwise only be available in a small press Collector's Edition that costs half as much again as the original novel despite being less than a quarter the length. I liked it a lot, but not so much that I would have been able to forgive the Collector's Edition price if I'd had to pay it.


2. Another thing I've revisited recently is the comic book series Atomic Robo; the back issues have been re-released as a webcomic, so I'm reading the series through again from the beginning. If you don't know Atomic Robo, I highly recommend it; it's kind of like Indiana Jones with weird science instead of half-remembered mythology and also the hero is a self-aware robot created by Nikola Tesla. Robo's greatest enemy is the megalomaniac scientist Heinrich von Helsingard; his oldest enemy is his father's great rival Thomas Edison; and his most annoying enemy is Doctor Dinosaur, a talking velociraptor whose attempts to science are patently nonsensical and yet somehow seem to work anyway.


3. Speaking of web sites having significant updates that I didn't notice until they were pretty much over: after saying that Adventures with the Wife in Space definitely wasn't going to do any of New Who, Neil and Sue have apparently been talked into doing the Eccleston year. They're absolutely not going to continue on and do Tennant, though. Probably.


4. And speaking of favourite fantasy authors, I can't remember whether I've recommended T. Kingfisher's fairy tale retellings in this space, but if so they're certainly worth recommending again. There are currently two novels, The Seventh Bride and Bryony and Roses, and a short story collection, Toad Words. There will probably be another collection at some point, since she's still writing new ones, and just recently won a Nebula for one of them.

(T. Kingfisher is Ursula Vernon, who won a Hugo for Digger and then became a best-selling author of children's fantasy, which is why now when she writes something in a similar vein to Digger she has to publish it under a different name so that nobody accidentally gives it to their ten-year-old.)


5. It seems to me that it says something about the priorities of the people making Thunderbirds Are Go that when, thirteen episodes in, one of the episodes has an expert consultant credited at the end, it (a) comes as a complete surprise, and (b) turns out to be, not a physicist or an engineer, but a speech therapist. Thunderbirds Are Go is not a series where scientific accuracy gets much of a look-in. (Good on them for wanting to make sure Brains's stammer is portrayed appropriately, though.)

Fiction books
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener. Atomic Robo: The Savage Sword of Dr Dinosaur
T Kingfisher. Nine Goblins (e)
T Kingfisher. The Seventh Bride (e)
Sharon Lee. Carousel Seas (e)
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Ghost Ship (e) (re-read)
Terry Pratchett. Moving Pictures (e) (re-read)
Patricia C Wrede. The Magician's Ward (e)
Patricia C Wrede. Mairelon the Magician (e) (re-read)

In progress
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener. Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne (e) (re-read)
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Necessity's Child (e) (re-read)
George MacDonald. The Princess and the Goblin
Tamora Pierce. Street Magic (e)
Terry Pratchett. Reaper Man (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books
Simon Singh. Big Bang

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Jung Chang. Empress Dowager Cixi

1. Once, years ago now, I read an anecdote about an author who disliked a film adaptation of one of her novels saying something pithy to the effect that the film resembled the novel only as much as two sausages that were the same shape but were stuffed with different ingredients.

This simile came back to mind when I watched the first episode of the new TV series based on G. K. Chesterton's stories about the mystery-solving priest Father Brown. The TV series certainly features a mystery-solving priest named Father Brown, and the mystery he solves in the episode I saw is recognisably similar to the one in the short story with which it shares its title, but all the Chestertonian ingredients seem to have been squeezed out and replaced with others. The sausage metaphor seems particularly apt since the result takes its place in a string of similar TV murder mysteries of recent years. (With, by way of leavening, some of the Quirky Townsfolk in Years Gone By recipe that British TV has spent so much time perfecting.) What, I ask, is the point of taking a series noted for its unique approach and approaching it the same way as everyone else?

Well, I suppose it means more sausages for the TV viewers who like that flavour of murder mystery. For myself, I suspect I'll find it more rewarding if I just go back and read the stories instead.


2. Speaking of reading, and sort of detectives, I've finished reading Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 01. One of my favourite moments in the later chapters comes from a storyline in which Judge Dredd quits the force after failing to catch the leader of a criminal gang (and nearly getting killed by said gang leader) and takes up a menial job as a street-sweeper on a maintenance crew. It's all a dodge, of course, to lure the gang leader into thinking it's safe to take another crack at him, and the story ends with a splash panel of the population cheering as Dredd assures them he's still a Judge and always will be... and down in the bottom corner of the page, one member of the maintenance crew remarks to another that it's really just as well, because between you and me, he was a lousy street-sweeper.

(Which reminds me that one of the reasons I ended up not going to see Dredd when it was in the cinema was that I didn't get any indication from the reviews I saw that it had any of the original's sense of humour. I don't think I could put up with two hours of somebody trying to take Mega City One seriously.)


3. Speaking of comics, and reading, Ursula Vernon (whose award-winning webcomic Digger recently had a successful Kickstarter campaign to publish a single-volume collected edition) went on a trip to Alaska last month and came back with some good stories for her blog, including a pair of birders encountering several Arctic birds for the first time and a truly awesome whale-watching trip.


4. Speaking of Kickstarter, and comics, Tesladyne Industries is holding an employee drive, because apparently they have a recurring problem holding on to new employees beyond the first hideous slavering monster attack. Or, to put it another way: Atomic Robo merch!

The base level reward is a copy of the all-new Tesladyne Employees' Field Guide; higher levels include posters, buttons, stickers, mugs, T-shirts, etc.

The highest level, available in limited numbers, is the Action Scientist Kit, which includes a lab coat, shirt, and various items of official stationery, all with the Tesladyne logo on -- or, if you prefer, the Minion of Dr. Dinosaur Kit, which includes a "slightly ruined" lab coat, dinosaur-themed variants of the stationery, and Genuine Hollow Earth Crystals, complete with a Genuine Certificate of Authenticity (forged with all the care and attention Dr. Dinosaur brings to all his genuine documents).


5. I could wrap this around to the beginning again if I could think of anything to say involving Kickstarter and television, but nothing's coming to mind. Have I mentioned yet that tomorrowpeople is running a group re-watch of the original 1970s Tomorrow People series? And that I've been using that as an excuse to watch the series for the first time? That's been... interesting.

Fiction books
(anthology). Batman Black and White volume 2
Kurt Busiek, Brent Eric Anderson, Will Blyberg. Astro City: Confession
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener. Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time
Warren Ellis, John Cassaday. Planetary: Crossing Worlds
Warren Ellis, John Cassaday. Planetary: The Fourth Man
Warren Ellis, John Cassaday. Planetary: Leaving the 20th Century
Warren Ellis, Darrick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: Lust For Life
Warren Ellis, Darrick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: Lonely City
Warren Ellis, Darrick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: The New Scum
Warren Ellis, Darrick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: Year of the Bastard
John M Ford. The Dragon Waiting
John M Ford. The Princes of the Air
Diana Wynne Jones. Enchanted Glass
Diana Wynne Jones. The Game
Joe Masteroff, Fred Ebb. Cabaret
Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Jamie Grant. All Star Superman volume 1
Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Jamie Grant. All Star Superman volume 2
Dennis Palumbo. City Wars
Anthony Price. The Alamut Ambush
Steve Purcell. Sam & Max: Surfin' the Highway
Osamu Tezuka. Astro Boy: Volume 3 (re-read)
Naoki Urasawa, et al. Pluto: 007 (re-read)
Naoki Urasawa, et al. Pluto: 008

In progress
Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace

Non-fiction books
Russell T Davies, Benjamin Cook. The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter
Paul Dini, Chip Kidd. Batman Animated

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Louisa M Alcott. Little Women

Fiction books
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener. Atomic Robo and the Dogs of War
Neil Gaiman. Absolute Sandman volume 3
Tanith Lee. The Dragon Hoard (re-read)
Alan Moore, Zander Cannon. Smax
Adam Rex. The True Meaning of Smekday

In progress
Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace

Non-fiction books
(none)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
S M Stirling. The Sky People