Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

Pop into the local Waterstone's just to see if Light is in early, and on spotting two copies, buy one. Then when the sales clerk reads the back blab, recommend her The Course Of The Heart and Signs Of Life.

Which of course puts me into the mood to just sit down and immerse myself in Mike's wonderful writing. When I have a CMS to grok deeply...

Now I have to spend all day with a copy of Light just begging to be read.

Why does M John Harrison have to be such a good writer?

At least I have the new Tori Amos in the iPod...

China Miéville is an interesting person, who engages deeply with his chosen genre, and enters into a dialogue with it and its root texts. This is, I hasten to add, A Good Thing, and even where he draws on Michael Moorcock's definitive essay on the Tolkienesque, Epic Pooh (collected in Wizardry and Wild Romance and sadly out of print), he is driven to illuminate the disconnection between fantasists and the real. The Tolkien route is one of conciliation, of acceptance of the status quo, rather than of exploration of the new, of discourse with the old, and of growth and change.

The same can be (and is) said of J. K. Rowling. Take this op-ed from the Washington Post, for example.

And all I can think, is "We need more John Brunners". Or at the very least, an angry Pratchett.