Thursday, September 30, 2004
Reading between the stress. Rudy Rucker's Software has now been checked off the (cyberpunk) reading list -- with Wetware and Freeware waiting in the wings -- and Live Without A Net, edited by Lou Anders, is well underway. The latter was a gift from my mother, bought at a Chapters somewhere, and the former was one of the many used books I've bought in Toronto recently. (A large bagful, in fact; I'm proud of myself.) The trouble, of course, is finding time to read when finding time to do anything but the work of the bereaved, including a long-distance move, is hard enough. Trust me when I say that forgoing exercise and writing wasn't by choice.
posted by media_dystopia @ 23:28 [ link | top | home ]
Saturday, September 11, 2004
I blame disgruntled library science drop-outs. Jeff Noon's Vurt does not belong in the general fiction and/or literature section, okay?
The label that some sodding wanker (said with my finest Mancunian accent) attached to it at some point has stuck and, as a result, bookstores in Canada, both chain and used, are putting it there. This is why I missed out on buying a cheap used copy -- I was always looking in the correct section: science fiction and fantasy. (Hell, I first learned of the novel when I saw it in a well-known SF&F bookstore eight years ago -- and they should know.) It's really disconcerting when you finish a book you bought new weeks earlier, and then spot three used copies in one day. Imagine my dismay when my search for Chuck Palahniuk in the general fiction and literature sections of several used book stores brought me face-to-face with half-priced Jeff Noon. Not impressed.
For some more-bizarre-than-Vurt reason, the aforementioned wanker -- who obviously hasn't read this wonderful book -- decided that, no, it's neither science fiction, nor fantasy, and therefore belongs next to narratives well-grounded in our world. Trust me, it isn't. Most assuredly not. Nope. But I'm not the one stocking and shelving Vurt these days, am I? The lemmings of the world are!
Now, the question is, when I go looking for the sequel, Pollen, and the prequel, Nymphomation, not to mention Pixel Juice, Noon's first short story collection, what the hell categories should I be checking other than the obvious -- and correct -- one? The travel section, perhaps? French philosophy, peut-être? Maybe I should just head straight for the stack of decades-old National Geographic magazines -- hey, you never know. Sheesh.
Follow-up: When I got back from my trip, I fully intended to search through Vurt for quotes to establish its sci-fi credentials, to prove once and for all that Jeff Noon has no place being wedged between the likes of Elizabeth Noble and Diana Norman (no offense to those fine authors); problem is, there are too many examples to choose from.
Follow-up: The Pan Books edition of Pollen contains a blurb about Vurt: "A brilliantly innovative and highly entertaining novel from the celebrated pioneer of urban fantasy." Keyword: fantasy. Clearly, someone other than the publisher is to blame for Vurt's mis-categorization; whoever it is, they owe me the 12 extra bucks I paid for the book.
posted by media_dystopia @ 20:07 [ link | top | home ]