Why This Is Hell

Let's see if I can keep on top of this. I need a separate file...

( I: Alfred Bester, Extro (1975) )

( II: Alfred Bester, Golem100 (1980) )

( III: Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising (1973) )

( IV: Susan Cooper, Greenwitch (1974) )

( V: Gore Vidal, Kalki (1978) )

( VI: Robert O'Brien, Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (1972) )

( VII: Brian Earnshaw, Dragonfall 5 and the Royal Beast (1972) )

( VIII: John Brunner, Total Eclipse (1974) )

I have obviously read books since September - just haven't been writing them down. Here's a likely partial list.

( CXLIX: Frederik Pohl, Man Plus )
( CLXX: Frederik Pohl, Gateway )
( CLXXI: Frederik Pohl, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon )
( CLXXII: Frederik Pohl, Jem )
( CLXXIII: Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker )
( CXXIV: Manly Wade Wellman and Wade Wellman, Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds )
( CXXV: Quintin Jardine, Skinner's Rules )
( CXXVI: Quintin Jardine, Skinner's Festival )
( CXXVII: Barry N. Malzberg, Scop )
( CXXVIII: Barry N. Malzberg, The Last Transaction )
( CXXIX: Barry N. Malzberg, Tactics of Conquest )
( CXXX: Barry N. Malzberg, The Gamesman )
( CXXXI: Larry Townsend, 2069 )
( CXXXII: Larry Townsend, 2069 + 1 )
( CXXXIII: Larry Townsend, 2069 + 2 )
( CXXXIV: Brian Aldiss, The Malacia Tapestry )
( CXXXV: George H. Smith, The Second War of the Worlds )

Catch up!

( CXXII: Brian Aldiss, Frankenstein Unbound (1973) )

( CXXIII: Octavia Butler, Patternmaster (1976) )

( CXXIV: Octavia Butler, Mind of My Mind (1977) )

( CXXV: Octavia Butler, Survivor (1978) )

( CXXVI: Octavia Butler, Wild Seed (1980) )

( CXXVII: Vonda McIntyre and Susan Janice Anderson, eds, Aurora: Beyond Equality (1976) )

( CXXVIII: James Tiptree, Out of the Everywhere and Other Extraordinary Visions (1981) )

( CXXIX: M John Harrison, The Pastel City (1971) )

( CXXX: Samuel R. Delany, Triton (1976) )

( CXXXI: Brian Aldiss, Enemies of the System (1978) )

It all feels like I'm not achieving enough - which is a familiar OCD complaint, so I'm not sure if it's valid. I have finished a novel and watched a film today though, so the tiptoeing continues. I am worried about three trips to London and one to York before the end of the month, but at least these offer several hours' reading time if I can focus on the train.

On Saturday, I needed to get out of the post code, so I went to Faversham with a friend in the morning. I had checked in advance to discover the book fair, but took that as omen rather than an invitation. It's a very familiar set of stock, and is dullsville. This it proved. We had a quick look in the bookshop on Preston St, Books of Faversham, which keeps erratic hours, and nothing jumped out as a purchase, then looked round the market, and shot down to Past Sentence, where I picked up half a dozen items which I needed, and failed to buy Andromeda, one of those books I seem to wrongly assume I have. I got two follow-ups though, and a new copy of The Atrocity Exhibition to replace a lent one. If it hadn't have been so hot I might have hung round to do tourist stuff, but instead I bought cheese (a Kentish brie and a goat's cheese) and a pork shoulder to slow roast, before hitting the train back to the pub.


( LXXXVII: William S. Burroughs, Blade Runner (A Movie) (1979) )

( LXXXVIII: Michael Moorcock, Breakfast in the Ruins (1972) )

( LXXXIX: D.G. Compton, The Electric Crocodile (1970) )

( XC: D.G. Compton, The Missionaries (1972) )


Word count:

50100 / 120000 words. 42% done!

I notice many of my sections begin "[subject] is also explored in [title of text]." I must edit these down.

Yesterday was a bit of a trudge, not settling to write, but today, despite an expotition to Paddock Wood and the other Tunbridge Wells, has been more productive of reading. Tomorrow I shall tackle Shikasta.

I awoke this morning to birdsong and a crunching noise; the crunching outlasted the birdsong briefly. A sparrow sang as it went, leg by leg. The trip to Paddock Wood was to see a crucifixion exhibition, the centrepiece of what was designs by Marc Chagall for stained glass windows in Tudeley church. There was another Chagall, a recent discovery, a Gilbert Spencer, a Graham Sutherland or two, a Lee Miller, comic books. Interesting. Then I walked back towards the station and caught a bus to Tunbridge Wells where I was made angry by being diddled out of change and had a sneaky pint of Harvey's Sussex Best. I'd not done this end of Tunbridge Wells before - oddly at the Pantiles, I'd had the sense I was missing something, in fact I thought finding the Pantiles was the rest of Tunbridge Wells, but I hadn't gone uphill from the station before. Despite the coffee shops, I think I prefer my TW. But I found a Julian Graves and bought dried fruit and a Rooks and bought some pork, which even now is slow roasting and smells delicious.


( LXXIV: William S. Burroughs, Port of Saints (1973) )

( LXXV: Doris Lessing, Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971) )

( LXXVI: Barry Malzberg, The Destruction of the Temple (1973) )

Reads, not rereads, for once.

( LXIX: M. John Harrison, The Committed Men (1971) )

( LXX: M. John Harrison, The Centauri Device (1975) )

( LXXI: Gardner Dozois, Strangers (1978) )

End of week three, and twenty-seven novels read (nine this week). I need to watch some films and tv, and get a bit of a grip on time out.

Seasonally adjusted word count:

46100 / 120000 words. 38% done!

11 October is the projected end date, so I've pulled back a day, but I have some chunks I need to get written.

In May 1997 I had my hair cut - probably for the first time in two years. Since then - aside from a bit of growing to an inch - I've been no. 4 to no. 0. I don't want have to start growing my hair down to my ass again.

I'm surprised I got anything done today, given a stuff up over the council tax which came to light today. I am still waiting for the council to phone me back.

Mostly today has been reading around feminism, and failing to find all the stuff I was convinced I'd written six months ago. Today's question: who coined the label second-wave feminism and where and when? The first part appears to be Marsha Lear, who so far evades Google fu and doesn't show up at the Library of Congress catalog, nor in Lisa Tuttle's Encyclopedia of Feminism. I suspect I'm also going to need a copy of "The Image of Women in Science Fiction", which ought to be in To Write Like a Woman but isn't. I once had a photocopy, but now? H'mm. A copy of Images of Women in Fiction: Feminist Perspectives, ed. Susan Koppelman Cornillon will be sought. [Campus on the Hill: PD 826.W6]

Meanwhile:

LVIII: Farah Mendlesohn (ed.) On Joanna Russ (2009)
I suspect that if I'd sat down and analysed the contents page and seen some abstracts I could have predicted the way I'd react to each chapter - I wasn't entirely convinced by Paul March-Russell's connection of Russ and Loy (but perhaps I don't know Loy well enough) and Brian Clarke's Deleuze/Guattari's theories left me cold as always. I didn't expect to like Delany's use of DW Griffith, but he convinced me, but in part the connection didn't matter save as performance. I was amused by one writer quoting Russ talking about how (male) reviewers see her work as violent, and then Jason P. Vest writing about how violent her work is. I spotted a few glitches - Bakhtin 1968 seemed to become Bakhtin 1965, "The Second Inquisition" was 1968 or 1970, Women of Wonder 1974 or 1975. I reread my own piece, and didn't hate it, but it felt a little overpowering. If I recall a reviewer suggested I goofed by saying the narrator murders all the characters in We Who Are About To... - "she is not averse to hastening the extinction of the passengers and crew by killing in self-defense" doesn't say all.

This sounds all more negative than I want - it is a good solid collection, with no obvious gaps - but I took fewer notes than I expected to. I'll be dipping back in, of course, but I didn't quite get what I want for the current project; I'm not sure what I wanted, but... On the other hand, the early chapters about the sf community sparked some useful thoughts, and I will be using that. I need to scratch my head a bit more about Vonda McIntyre.

Here's a thought: I've always had the notion that We Who Are About To... parodies the shipwrecked rebuilding society/crashed spaceship rebuilding the world. One chapter here makes good links to Lost in Space and Gilligan's Island, but surely there's more solidly sf there. I've gone blank. Robinsonades? No reproduction for Crusoe.

Last night I found my copy of The Custodians, so I read "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" in the bath today. I thought I had a copy. It was on my dining table, and bought in Windsor in 2001. I have no memory of being in Windsor then. Ah, Windsor, Melbourne. Good job I checked.

Reading:

LII: Richard Cowper, Twilight of Briareus (1974)
Thriller set before and during a new ice age - more psi powers on display and more time travel ish stuff. Disappeared into a manuscript to avoid a proper ending.

LIII: C.J. Cherryh, Gate of Ivrel (1976)
First of the Morgaine trilogy - with pages that are bad Scrabble hands ("Delo'ruv was in Addhgno..."). Volume two tomorrow, volume three Monday.

I also finished watching season one of The Clangers, which gets political toward the end. I might watch season two next.