Sadly, I'm struggling to get into a more productive groove. At the very least to blog more regularly and with greater focus both here and at my other public blog.

I managed to define some discrete workable space to resume yoga so I can start to exercise again. And I do intend to start that soon. So that should help with getting back into shape and re-building my energy levels and motivation a bit.

Of course, I'm finding that between my too many hours spent at the keyboard at work and at home that my hands are getting an all too familiar pain. But since I know the problem after the awful experience last year, I'm promptly breaking out the wrist supports. Because clearly I'm slacking off on watching my hands positioning and I need the forceful reminder they represent. I should also replace my home chair which isn't as supportive height wise for my keyboard as it used to be.

It's those annoying little things that can derail you so easily if you don't watch it.

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I've also started trying to define a more solid period of just rest each week starting Friday night until Sunday morning. The idea is that I shouldn't try or feel I need to do anything. Just read, watch videos, listen to music and relax in general.

I'm not quite there yet, but I continue to work at. Currently, the idea is to expand it to no on-line stuff. No reading blogs, discussion groups, news, etc.

It's a variation of something I used to do years ago during the time between Christmas and New Year's. Where I work we have that time off and often my roommates would be gone. I used to try to set that period aside to be free of news, serious books magazines, etc.

I want to adapt it into a weekly thing, but I really have to go in stages since it kind of hard to cut off everything at once. I do think it will be worth it in the long run.

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I've been playing with some of the smart list features in iTunes player. Currently I have a folder called Random 25, with a collection of smart lists each one set to offer 25 random genre selections working their way up by play count.

For example one list would be 25 random Blues songs whose play count equals 1. When I've gone through all the Blues songs who have only be played once, I set it to the one with play counts of 2.

I've done that for all musical genres (except classical because I don't want random movements of different pieces.) Then I just listen to the genre I want.

It's kind of nice because I sometimes get in what I call an indecision loop, where I can decided what I want to listen too, watch, read, eat, etc. next. Usually whatever I finally chose is fine because I rarely own anything I don't like - but I can spend more time than is productive just "deciding."

- to be continued -

I've been on a couple of related kicks recently both leaping to a single goal. One is gathering up and reading some of the year's best collections in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Right now I going through David Hartwell's Year's Best SF collections (I'll also be checking out some of Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction, Hartwell's & Cramer's Year's Best Fantasy and Ellen Datlow's Year's Best Fantasy and Horror.) The most recent volume is number 14 and I acquired them all and have been going through in order. I just started volume 8 so I'm just past the halfway mark. So now I'm solidly the point when I started to get back into SF again.

So while I'm doing this I've been scouting sales on line and have been acquiring bit by bit all the science fiction and fantasy magazines I used to read when I first got into things back in the 1970s. Amazing and Fantastic under Ted White, Galaxy and Worlds of If (separately and combined) under James Baen, Fantasy and Science Fiction under Edward Ferman, Analog under Ben Bova and the beginning of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine under George Scithers - were along with the Science Fiction Book Club the centerpieces of my reading back then. Hopefully by the time I finish with all the contemporary anthologies which supplement all the magazines I currently get, I will have finished gathering all those up. Then I'll read all of them.

I'm doing all of this for a couple of reasons. Yes, it's fun to gather up complete collections of books and magazines and read them. But it's also to compare and contrast the two big eras of my interesting in SF&F.

The 1970s was when it started and I was pretty heavily into the genres. I drifted away from print SF&F and stopped following the magazines during the 1980s but followed it on TV and at the movies. During the 1990s I got heavily into anime and manga (continues to this day) and because of that I got back heavily into print SF&F and re-subscribed to the big three magazines that were left - Analog, Asimov's and Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Mind you it wasn't that I didn't read any SF&F during the 1980s and 1990s, it just wasn't a big focus - like it was during my first wave and is now during my second wave. But once I thought of it as being two distinct waves about 20 years apart, I got kind of interested in examining it. I read a lot now and find stuff I like but I also recognize, as I mentioned before, there seems to be a lot of stuff I don't like. And in the back of my mind is that vague nostalgia for the magazines I read back then.

Part of me wants to say that what I find missing is a certain sense of awe, wonder and fun now which used to be more present then - mind you I'm talking more about contemporary science fiction than fantasy. That, in the genre's attempt to be serious, adult and respectable it lost something precious along the way. But is that just a haze of memory?

That's kind of why I'm doing this too. I'm curious how well do the magazines and short fiction I read in both eras actually compare instead of how what I read currently compares to my memories and impressions from my tween/teen years.

Plus, there's an old chestnut about what you read and loved as a tween/teen is kind of your golden age for whatever genre/thing you were into. You kind of see it as the best and what things should be like.

In music, I know that simply isn't true for me. I kind have fits of nostalgia, but what I listen to and love today would be incredibly unpalatable and unthinkable to me back then. The stuff back then I was into musically is fine and I still enjoy some of it, but really it has no special hold, glow, halo, etc.

So the question when I read the magazines now and think in the back of my mind that "oh there is a good story once and a while but overall it's no where near as good as the magazines I read back then" - how much of that is really changes in the field? And how much is just what I'm actually reading having to compete with memories? And how much may simply be the difference between looking at stories at that age based on my experiences then versus looking at my current age with my experiences now?

So this is kind of my summer project - should be interesting, huh?

So I was picking up the last two episodes of the Brave and the Bold cartoon via iTunes (which is surprisingly fun), but since that was only about $4 and that seemed like a tiny amount to charge I started looking to see if there was anything else I wanted to grab.

Before I know it, caught between some selective nostalgia for a song or two I vaguely remember not actively hating as a tween and steeply cheap pricing for greatest hits albums - I had added in Bobby Sherman's greatest hits and well as Kiss' greatest hits (one of the apparently 19 millions greatest hits albums they have.)

You know, I wasn't exactly a fan of either during their heydays. Yes, I do like to pick up greatest hits collections of artists that I wasn't necessarily a fan of but didn't actively dislike the odd song or two I knew by them. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised and end up getting some of their actual albums, like Roberta Flack whose early albums are substantially better and way more interesting musically than the singles that were released and I was aware of back then.

I don't actual regret it though, but I take it as further proof that my brain is wired differently from others.

Well, round one of me versus exercise failed miserably. Or should I say ended with some setbacks which have forced me to rethink things and try different approaches.

Problems: I was starting to try to walk more each day as an easy ramping* up to activity, but we're having so much random heavy rain and thunderstorms lately - particularly when I'm off work and would be doing it - that building the routine has been next to impossible. Plus I found that the increased walking was hurting my heel.

Solutions: I've been checking out better cushioned and supportive insoles to put in my shoes. And I'll have to work on things to do inside to compensate, which is a good idea to do anyway.

Of course, actually doing them is another matter.

Well, at least I've dug out my old yoga mat and will play with how to be able to clear space to set up it quickly and easily when I want to use.

Yeah, that is an issue with all the books, DVDs, CDs, etc. A lot of time, floor space is more a theoretical concept in my life than actual reality. Usually I operate with shifting walking paths amongst my stuff.

Sometimes it feels as if my room actually belongs to my stuff and I'm just crashing there trying not to inconvenience it.

From time to time, I contemplate packing a lot of things I don't actively use but will need to access in the long term into boxes and storing them somewhere. There is storage right near me and the summer, when the weather is better, would be the perfect time to move stuff over. It'd be a pain at first, but would my make life way easier in the long run.

Of course, I could just wait until I win the lottery and could actually afford a place to myself in the city big enough for me and my stuff to peacefully and happily co-exist...



* No less than helpful spell-checker. The word I want is "ramping" and not "raping" - talk about your inappropriate suggestion!

Time for some more randomness...

Facing the inevitable - I was having lunch with a friend last Friday and I came to a realization or perhaps just admitted something I probably knew but was in denial about. I was commiserating with her about how there are things I want to spend time doing such as writing, learning to draw, and start to exercise since I stopped years ago and have let myself get quite out of shape. But that while I technically could make the time, actually finding the energy and motivation after a long day or week at work was nearly impossible. I recalled that not too many years ago this wasn't the same problem. It was then it finally hit me.

I'd hit a critical point in getting older. The time when exercise, even just occasional, was optional was past. Sure it used to be that I could have a busy week and still have energy and motivation to pursue some of my own projects irregardless of whether I was exercising or not. But now, if I want to have energy and motivation to actually pursue those things, I have to make time to exercise reguarly.

We all know we're getting older, but those annoying consequences always bite you in the butt - don't they?

Time to break out the yoga mat to reclaim my lost flexibility and fit time in to take long walks to start rebuilding that lost stamina.

So sad...the whole having to do things you don't want to do to be able to do things you do - just smacks of adulthood!

Irrational affection - I'm about halfway through watching the show Northern Exposure via netflix and I totally love it. I'm sorry to say I completely missed watching it when it was originally on. That said it is causing a creeping irrational romanticizing of small towns. But I'll just add that to the pile of media caused affection for places. Like my parallel and quite irrational belief that living in Ireland or France would be peachy thanks to other tv shows, books, music and film. That said, the show is amazingly fun and addictive. I'll probably end up buying the DVDs at some point.

Thank you Baen Books, I think - Between tending to read more on my Kindle and Baen Books being the hands downs best purveyor of SF & F in eBook format (selection, price, etc.) I've been on an absolute urban fantasy tear. Right now I'm loving three series:

• Doc Sidhe by Aaron Allston - one of two books where Doc Savage style meets 1930s pulp detectives and supernatural beings. The second book is eagerly anticipated in my queue.
  
• Tinker by Wen Spencer - loved the first and I've just started the second. There better be more coming in the future. Okay not technically urban fantasy since Pittsburgh shifts between 20th century earth and an elfworld (read it to find out) - but I'll count it.
  
• One Foot in the Grave by Wm. Mark Simmons - closest to straightforward urban fantasy with a sense of humor. First of four books with the rest awaiting me my queue.
  

Sure they won't change my life, but I'm enjoying them. Of course the question is once I blow through the paltry few left, what will be next?

Well, I know what I'm going to be playing with this weekend. Someone whipped up a free program that sets ups manga scans so they are readable as books on the Kindle! There's a ton of manga I already own but I'd rather read in my Kindle than deal with my DT (Dead Tree) book copies. So I'm going to check it out. Mind you, if it works I'm going to acquire ones I already have bought and paid for in DT format and then do like I've done with my other books I bought in eBook format and box them as archives and free up a lot of shelf space.

I suspect given their graphical nature I won't be able to fit too many manga volumes at a time on it, especially given I've already filled half the memory with other books, but I can easily use the USB cable to store the bulk on my desktop and comfortably have 5 – 10 volumes for active reading at any time and double that if I'm willing to be more watchful of my space.

I've been thinking for a while that with the resolutions and level of gray shading now available in the new Kindle 2 and the larger size Kindle DX - that they are perfect for black and white comics like manga and those phone book sized releases of older DC and Marvel comics in black and white.

I really hope the R1 manga and comic publishers catch on that these eBook readers are a great format for their ware and start offering them for sale soon. Because I'll double dip again just like I did with my regular DT books. If they don't and these things take off like I suspect I predict many of these publishers will be gone before they realize it.

This post has no real theme, enlightened wisdom or probing points – so be warned that it is nothing but a bunch of assorted things.

I've gotten kind of hooked on a fun little mystery series from the early 1960s called Burke's Law, about millionaire playboy Captain of the Los Angeles PD Homicide Division. It's filled guest star oddball suspects and with the sort of witty noir style bantering that is so incredibly lacking in the generally annoying “gritty” and “serious” detective shows that litter the airways nowadays. Great change the world stuff, not so much. But a fun way to spend an hour, absolutely. I'm 2/3 the way through the first season (all available on DVD) and I'm still having a blast.

In amongst the many other books I'm currently reading, nine or so right now, I'm in the midst of re-reading Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books yet again. There's a bizarre war in my head that I used to have that I enjoy these books way more than I sometimes feel comfortable about. Intellectually I can list out a lot of reasons against them, but more importantly I always enjoy them way to much to worry about that.

I've been on the most bizarre acquisition kick for a while now. Bit by bit, I've been scooping up science fiction and fantasy magazines from the 1970s. The 1970s was really the era I started reading both and the magazines that came out then were really where I cut my teeth. Once I hit a critical mass (which I'm approaching) I'm going to start reading them. I'm not positive which issues I had back then, but I'm really curious how I'll think of the stories, articles, reviews and letters now versus when I read them as a teen.

Admittedly, I still have four volumes to go, but so far I'm really enjoying anime series "The Third, the Girl with the Blue Eye." It may yet disappoint me, but right now I'm loving each episode and watching them slowly unfold the story and world it creates. I'm very pleased with how they are gradually exploring the scenario of the show and developing the plot. I'm regretting that I waited so long to start following the show.

Over at SF Signal there are gently mocking Harlan Ellison saying he using the tools of science fiction, but isn't a science fiction writer. But frankly, while I see their POV – I'm not sure that he is so terribly far off either. Given that , while yes he has published in genre magazines, he's worked a huge amount writing outside the genre, doing mysteries, TV, movies, criticism and more – it's kind of myopic to define him solely by what SF fans know him for. I really don't have a problem saying he's a writer who has written a lot of science fiction.

Am I the only one who thinks the word fluffinutter sounds way more dirty than it actually is?

Analog, July/August 2009


I've often thought of doing issue reviews of various SF & F magazines I subscribe to like Analog, Asimov's, Fantasy & Science Fiction and Jim' Baen's Universe - but frankly it really didn't seem a good use of my time or useful for others. But when I read the latest issue of Analog I kind of put my finger on why.

Here's what struck me about the stories in the issue which I'm going to group by theme.

Funny talking animal mystery stories:

Seed of Revolution by Daniel Hatch
The Bear Who Sang Opera by Scott William Carter

I know mystery science fiction stories have a long, long history and there are more than a few published in the magazines every year, but I'm not really a mystery person. Yes, there are some well done ones which I've enjoyed. But overall, they tend to be fairly straight detective/mystery stories with a thinnish veneer of something SF as a cover.

And strangely enough there seems to be a minor almost sub-genre of talking animals and mysteries the past couple of years. Whether it be from being alien biology, nanotech, genetic engineering, cyberization, etc. I've seen several stories based around this idea (all mysteries with talking animals) in the past several years.

Is it some bizarre furry thing?

I have to say as a whole I strongly prefer it when aliens are actually alien - not just pretty basic variations of earth animals that talk or humans with bumpy noses and/or pointy ears. Certainly it is easier just to create those, but no where near as satisfying for me as a reader. It's one of the reasons I'm such a fan of Julie Czerneda. She generally does an excellent job at creating aliens who feel alien.

Military Stories:

Failure to Obey by John G. Hemry
Duck and Cover by Don D’Ammassa

Perhaps one of the other central SF story types as old or older than the mystery one is the military one. Once again, over all I'm not a fan of it for pretty much the same reasons as mystery SF. While there are a stories done of that type which are good, too often they are standard military stories with a small coating of SF and that's it. The former story is exactly that and the later has a minor potential SF twist.

Out of control magic tech:

The Calculus Plague by Marissa K. Lingen

I'm almost tempted to call this the Sorcerer's Apprentice (SA) with an SF twist, where genetic engineering (be it people or virus, etc.), nanotech, etc. replicates beyond design with lots of unexpected magic like consequences - sometimes humorous and sometimes not.

Too often for me these feel like throw away stories and generally are pretty hit or miss in whether I find them entertaining or not. I think overall it's a matter of the intent and how the author uses the SA device. If used as means to illustrate a great change in thought or world view (like Rudy Rucker does in some of his better stuff) it works well for me. Otherwise it tends not to work.

Technically, I'll say the story was just over the line for getting away with it, IMO. BTW, the tag line for the story Bear who Sang Opera was "New Technologies Can Lead to New Crimes - And Motives" - which I actually thought would have been much better here for this story.

Payback by Tom Ligon

Actually the one story in the issue that worked really well for me. It blends a nice common idea of alien world attacking Earth and how humanity responds, but grounds it well in the reality of physics as we understand it and the actual distances between stars and how they effect such a conflict. There are some things I could pick on or may wish had been handled differently, but nothing that undermines my enjoyment significantly.

Now mind you I don't expect a magazine to cater exclusively to my tastes. Frankly, I suspect that would be a recipe for failure. So yes I realize that there should be a variety of stories. And I'm sure that there are plenty of folks who like the sorts of stories I don't, given the commonness of such story types.

Nor am I saying the stories are bad, badly done or the author's are bad ones. What they created however didn't appeal to me because of the type of story they were choosing to tell.

But as a whole I find that the number of stories I like significantly are small in any issue while number that I don't like much are the majority as a rule with any one issue. And this seems to be especially true more now than I seem to remember it being in the past.

So why did I write this post? Because it's something I've been thinking about recently and I'm slowly making a connection to some things in a bigger picture way which I'll build upon in some upcoming posts.

After a year or so away, I'm resuming posting a bit. 

I've mainly been doing a more public blog at blogger (linky).

And now I'm starting a more informal blog  at Dreamwidth  - (linky there too), but I'm setting it to duplicate my posts there here for folks still at livejournal.

As I said there:

Why another blog in addition to my blogger one?

• Sometimes I want to share more personal stuff which might be friends only
• Sometimes I just want to post something that's a little more free form and not necessarily meant to be entertaining or significant (not that I might not do that here as well)
• Sometimes I have things to say that are better suited to a more informal style
• Sometimes I have ideas that I think are interesting but never develop quite enough to be posted there
• Sometimes a rough idea or discussion will start here and be polished, changed and posted there in a different format

There will be some posts I'll do both places but as a whole they will be different blogs with different directions and goals.

No absolute rules, but I'll probably muse and write directly here with a personal touch, while there things will be more planned and persona based.

Onwards...

It's not just thoughts of murder that seem to plague Riverdale in the 1940s. Apparently life is so harsh in this oppressive community that suicide is on everyone's minds.

Archie plans it:



Oh, what terrible tragedy could have led Archie down this path?

Are you sure you want to know?

Really, really sure?

Experiencing a blinding rage may be a typical reaction to what I'm about to tell you.

So it seems in this story Riverdale is having a variant on the Sadie Hawkins Dance and every girl in Riverdale is trying to get Archie to be her date. Naturally Archie can't chose and so contemplates suicide.

My heart just breaks into tiny little pieces thinking how brutal that situation is on poor Archie.

I want to help you if I can. You know, Archie, there's always a chance you might change your mind at the last minute. So let me aid you by tying you down to the tracks. And just in case some train conductor foolishly tries to stop too soon, I'll make sure to drive that train myself.

Of course, these tendencies of Archie's have long been known in the community. Apparently his family has anticipated it for a while, seeing what a ticking time bomb he is.

The setup:



and the pitch:



Amazing how Dad goes right to it, clearly he is no stranger to thoughts of Archie's violent demise.

(In truth Mom was just upset that her baby had shaved for the first time.)

Truly Riverdale in the 1940s was a town who's teens were teetering on the edge of destruction!