Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Got fembots? Of the British authors that have recently invaded my reading, only Paul J. McAuley has an U.S. publisher -- at least, of the editions I've read -- which could explain the double quotation marks, American spelling, and non-conspiratorial approach to semicolons. (Although, I suspect that McAuley himself is responsible for his semicolon usage, rather than any editors he may have had across the pond.) As for his compatriots, I have indeed gotten used to their single quotation marks; so long as they're used consistently, I really don't mind. When it comes to their spelling, we English Canadians may have lost the motherland's accents and colloquialisms, but we've retained its spelling -- officially, that is; some of us have chosen, quite deliberately and in the face of years of scholastic indoctrination, to give in to the dark side and spell like our southern neighbors (as opposed to our neighbours). Why? Expediency, logic, sanity -- take your pick. Call me a spelling traitor if you must, but it made sense to make the transition when I started blogging in 2002. (When you live in the linguistic wake of the world's largest consumer and producer of the English language, OED Online's monthly subscription rate is that per year of Merriam-Webster Unabridged -- my current dictionary, not surprisingly -- and the Department of National Defence engages in defensive operations, that sort of decision is put into perspective.) Point being, as a writer, I lean one way, but as a reader, I'm bi: I'll do either spelling.
Dammit, there I go again rambling on about everything except the book itself: Fairyland was excellent. I'd describe it as nanotech-gengineering cyberpunk, which could explain why I enjoyed it so much, and why the temptation to reread William Gibson's Sprawl series grew the further into it I got. McAuley does not want for imagination; he manages to pack the book with inventive speculation, both technological and sociopolitical. His wonderfully evocative writing, also reminiscent of Gibson, had me doing the occasional double-take: crickets don't chirp -- they "stitch the night with pulses of insect code." (Nice!) Without any punctuation to take issue with, I'll have to confine my complaints to the story: either I wasn't paying attention enough, or it was getting a tad convoluted as it raced towards the climax. Thankfully, confusing in this case doesn't mean uninteresting.
The question is, now that I'm done with Fairyland and its arresting metaphors, do I throw a metaphorical dart at the wall of books, or give in to my Gibsonian urges? No, I'll hold off on rereading -- yet again -- Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, and the short stories collected in Burning Chrome; that is to say, I'll wait to savor Gibson's cyberpunk -- savor more than I ever have, thanks to my new perspective on books and others' writing. I think now is the time for some more British space opera: John Brunner's A Maze of Stars. I say "think" because it took me a while of hemming and hawing in front of the wall to make this choice; I even had to flip through several books, sampling bits and pieces of text, to do it. In the end, I found an unlikely tiebreaker in John Berkey's amazing cover art, its stylized spaceship and accompanying spaceport stirring both my memory and interest: I remember my father reading it in the early '90s (soon after it was published), and the idea of a monolithic vessel -- a world unto itself -- exploring the cosmos has always been an appealing one to me.
posted by media_dystopia @ 21:48 [ link | top | home ]
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Chalk one up for Canadian-South African sci-fi. I rather enjoyed the two-hour premiere the Charlie Jade on SPACE: The Imagination Station. I'd describe the dark, gritty show as trans-dimensional, corporate-dystopian film noir, complete with requisite tip of the hat to Blade Runner, including refinery flares over a smog-choked metropolis. As a shoot location, Canada is ho-hum, I'm sorry to say; thankfully, Charlie Jade is shot in South Africa, which is anything but: the country's diverse landscapes -- from ocean paradise to desert wasteland to Capetonian cityscape -- and its actors' distinctive accents give the show a feel that's completely out of the ordinary (at least to North American viewers and listeners). What's more, if the initial episode is any indication, the show's writing is up to the task of making its intriguing tridimensional concept -- "The Multiverse" -- work. I think it's safe to say that the hooks are in: I want to see how Charlie Jade progresses.
Follow-up: SPACE's prime-time lineup the following Saturday consisted of Charlie Jade, Dark City, and the director's cut of Blade Runner. Escapism at its finest.
posted by media_dystopia @ 22:07 [ link | top | home ]
Friday, April 15, 2005
Collecting "Get Out of Jail Free" cards as I read. The greatest irony of my life is that I only became a reader after becoming a writer; I learned to love the English language by writing it, rather than by reading it. (The sad part being that I only started reading one book after another after my father, the voracious reader, passed away.) Now that I've been blogging for two and a half years, I find myself able to read critically, able to look at others' writing with a critical eye, able to fixate on authors' style, grammar, and (especially) punctuation.
Here's an example of what I mean: I was in a waiting room the other day, with nothing to do but wait, so I perused a several-month-old edition of Maclean's focusing on the life and times of the then recently deceased Pierre Burton, a former correspondent for Canada's weekly newsmagazine. One of the articles quoted was the piece he wrote upon his arrival in Korea during the war, over 50 years ago. My reading faltered on one of the initial paragraphs; its first of two sentences, a curt one, was unremarkable, while its second was anything but: it was 71 words long and contained only commas. On the one hand, I was shocked by word count, what with today's journalism tending towards the succinct; on the other hand, I was buoyed by it: if Burton can do it... Don't get me wrong, I'm already guilty of writing longer sentences -- two that I can think of offhand: 137 words and 151 words respectively -- but they always contain at least one semicolon, colon, and/or dash to join or list distinct clauses; to rely exclusively on commas is just so...outré. (By way of contrast, the preceding sentence was 51 words long.)
So, instead of focusing on Burton's wonderfully evocative description of a city and its populace living under constant threat of attack, I was busy counting words, examining punctuation marks, and otherwise gleaning what I could from his style; I was comparing it to my own, justifying my grammatical faux pas (of which there are many). However appreciated the first-hand view of the Korean War from a master journalist may have been, it was no where near as much as Burton giving me a sort of carte blanche with that glorious 71-word, comma-delineated sentence of his. If and when someone takes me to task for a run-on sentence -- let's face it, that's what Burton's was, no matter how eloquent -- I'll be ready with that grammatical nugget.
If there's a moral to this story, it's that an unconventional approach to the written word does have its benefits; my ass-backward reading has, in its own peculiar and meandering sort of way, worked to my advantage. And to think, soon after I started blogging, I was laughed at for saying, "I have no appreciation for literature." Clearly, I should have said that I have no appreciation for literary snobbery. (All irony aside, I still have no interest in reading The Lord of the Rings.)
posted by media_dystopia @ 18:32 [ link | top | home ]
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
I must tell you, dear stone, that I liked this book. Having recently gone through all my old posts to make sure didn't have coordinating conjunctions like "and" and "but" following semicolons -- as per The Associated Press Guide to Punctuation -- it was easy to notice that Adam Roberts frequently did in Stone. Combined with his colon phobia, I'd say that, yes, he is part of the conspiracy. At first, it seemed to me that he was a bit player in it -- I even drafted this post to say as much -- but the further into the book I got, the more I realized that he is indeed one of the conspirators; one with a general aversion to commas, at that (albeit unrelated to the semicolons). And, of course, being a Brit, single quotation marks abound; luckily, I'm getting used to them. Other than all that, his punctuation usage is smooth as silk.
Oh, the book: I thought it was great; I really enjoyed it. Just because I have a punctuation fixation -- admittedly, writing-related hypocrisy at its finest -- doesn't mean the novel wasn't a good read. It certainly has a very interesting concept at its heart, not to mention an odd, yet enticing, first-person narrative. The book appealed to me enough to add the rest of Roberts' novels -- minus the parodies; I've never been a fan of those -- to my to-get list alongside Iain M. Banks' (whose Culture novels Stone's author loves to pieces). This, of course, is when I kick myself for not having bought those used copies of Roberts' books I saw repeatedly in Toronto. I almost did, their unusual, bright-colored, stark-lettered covers having caught my eye -- you hear that, publishers? -- but he was an unknown to me all those months ago and his "high-concept" science fiction didn't pique my interest at the time. Go figure.
Speaking of Banks, I'm awfully tempted by that Consider Phlebas brick in the wall; however, I shall resist that temptation for now and choose Paul J. McAuley's Fairyland as my next read instead. It's one of three books of his I've bought because of how much I enjoyed "Dr. Luther's Assistant," his 1993 short story collected in the Pat Cadigan-edited anthology The Ultimate Cyberpunk. Fairyland is set in the same world as the short story, which is why I bought it in the first place (and a good reason to get my hands on McAuley's The Invisible Country, which collects the other three short stories in the Fairyland series); the other two novels, completely unrelated to that bioengineered Europe of the future, are leaps of faith on my part. Incidentally, McAuley is the fourth British author I've read recently, which leads me to believe that some sort of subconscious punctuation masochism is at work.
posted by media_dystopia @ 18:13 [ link | top | home ]
Saturday, April 09, 2005
If equality isn't a Canadian value to him, then he shouldn't be first among equals. Stephen Harper addressing a Parliament Hill rally against same-sex marriage: how very...prime ministerial of him. If that man wants to lead Canada, then perhaps he shouldn't be actively fighting -- alongside the likes of Jason Kenney, no less -- against some of its citizens gaining equality. Perhaps he should be standing up for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms instead. I don't know about you, but I want my prime minister to speak up for my rights and those of my fellow citizens; if Canada's leader won't even do that, then what hope is there for Canadians whose rights have been denied? When mine are taken away, who's going to stand up for me? Clearly not Harper and the Conservatives.
What really bothers me about the sponsorship scandal isn't the money wasted or the so-called "corruption" (or "pattern of criminality," as Kenney asininely put it) -- it's the linkage between the Gomery Inquiry and the rights of Canadians: the angrier voters are at the Liberals -- who, by the way, set up the inquiry in the first place; the opposition parties who so vocally demanded answers are now conveniently forgetting that -- the greater the chances of the Conservatives forming the next government, and, therefore, the less likely that gays and lesbians will have the right to marry across Canada (or at all). It's sad that a protest vote, a vote out of spite against one party, rather than a vote for another and its bigoted platform, means that the Charter, as well as judgments based upon it made by the Supreme Court and its provincial counterparts, are ignored or even countermanded. (The more the Conservatives attack the judiciary, the more grateful I am that it's there to interpret the Charter in its stead; clearly, any Parliament whose members include narrow-minded people like Harper and Kenney should not be doing it.) Voters are pissed at the Liberals, therefore, Canadians end up being denied equal marriage -- for starters; abortion, bilingualism, and who knows what else could be next. (Anytime a party has to constantly make promises about what it won't mess with -- that's when I get nervous.) It seems to me that people using the sponsorship scandal to vote the Liberals out of office does not and should not give the Conservatives the mandate to deny or revoke Canadians' rights; they'd only be in power because voters were upset with the governing party, not because Canadians endorsed their social-conservative agenda. Chances are, the Opposition, with or without the Bloc Québécois, is going to pull the plug on the Liberal minority government sooner than later -- whenever the opportunity for power presents itself -- and the immediate effect of that is going to be the death of the Civil Marriage Act; same-sex marriage is going to be a victim of the sponsorship scandal. (An example of causality gone awry, if ever there was one.)
Oh, and gone at last are "Herr Harper" and "Herr Klein." Since I first started using the German title for the right-wingers last fall, it's been gnawing at me; at the back of my mind, I felt bad about using a low blow like that -- historical trash talk, if you will. (I was on the verge of using it during my seemingly never-ending election post last June, but even a tangential reference to Nazism felt inappropriate at the time, what with the 60th anniversary of D-Day halfway through the campaign.) A few days ago, after much deliberation, I gave in to my misgivings and replaced the word "Herr" with "Stephen" or "Ralph"; however, I'm now having seconds thoughts about my editorial decision: today's rally was a stark reminder of how well-deserved the title is. If Harper is going to be low enough to tie the sponsorship scandal to same-sex marriage for his own gain, saying that corruption is not a Canadian value but that (heterosexual) marriage is, then why shouldn't I be just as low in how I address him and his kind? Perhaps I should go even lower; "Adolf Harper" has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
posted by media_dystopia @ 23:34 [ link | top | home ]
Monday, April 04, 2005
All the banned Adscam news that's fit to blog. Ah, the benefits of using an American server finally reveal themselves: I can report what the news media in Canada can't because of the temporary publication ban at the Gomery Inquiry. The testimony of individuals facing criminal trials is under wraps here for the moment, but can and is being reported by American blogs -- which, in Internet and, therefore, legal terms, mine is (no matter how disturbingly ironic that may be). Keep in mind that those political Web sites south of the border aren't acting on behalf -- and certainly not for the good -- of the Canadian public; whether admitted to or not, they have a pro-Republican agenda: anything that destabilizes the Liberals, and boosts the Conservatives' fortunes, is fine by them. Hell, I wouldn't put it past Her Majesty's "Loyal" Opposition to be feeding them transcripts of the effectively closed-door testimony. Irrespective, though, of the Canadian source and American publisher's motives, the unreportable-in-Canada inquiry details are indeed available on the Web, and here they are...
Not bloody likely.
First of all, I don't share the American phobia of publication bans; they serve a valid judicial function, one that I agree with entirely, especially when used as a short-term measure to protect the criminal justice system (as is the case here). To violate a publication ban, especially by using an Internet technicality -- the geographic location of the Web page's host server -- as a loophole, would be a slap in the face of our legal system -- and shame on any Canadian blogger who does: it's morally wrong, no matter how much of a legal gray area or technical legality it is. (And by "Canadian blogger," I mean someone who, like me, lives and writes in Canada, but whose blog is published and hosted in the U.S. -- and, no, the irony of that is not lost on me.) That, of course, is no impediment to the Americans, who seem to have little respect for other countries' legal systems and laws at the best of times, and even less when a judge has the audacity to use those them to -- gasp! -- infringe on free speech. That, and they have no problem sticking their noses into other people's business, no matter how little they understand it; all they know is, something can't be reported in Canada, therefore they must report it, if anything, to expose the judicial tyranny of it all -- and, hey, if it hurts the Liberal government of a country they're not terribly fond of these days, then so be it.
Secondly, what makes you think I want to read the forbidden testimony, let alone spread it through the Blogosphere like a meme (even if doing so wasn't an affront to my beliefs)? I need the sponsorship scandal and its fallout like I need another hole in my head. Quebecers may follow it like it's the Second Coming, but I want to know about it as much as I want to know about anything that leads to more separatists and Conservatives being elected; national unity doesn't need any more of the former and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms doesn't need any more of the latter, thank you very much. (Not that a Conservative government representing only English Canada, and right-leaning Western Canada at that, would do federalism much good, either.) As I said during last year's election, "a government of Liberal boondogglers -- thieves, even -- is a much lesser evil than one of Conservative hatemongers." I've since developed an addendum to that: better a separatist than a Conservative (put another way, better Quebec's independent spirit than Alberta's social conservatism); I may despise the Bloc Québécois and its raison d'être, but at least it's liberal-minded when it comes to social issues like same-sex marriage.
So, if you're looking for me to circumvent the publication ban, or even to point to those who are, you've come to the wrong place.
posted by media_dystopia @ 23:19 [ link | top | home ]
"In a country of microphones and microphone stands...." If the latest inductees into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame proved anything during their two-song performance at the 2005 Juno Awards last night, it's that they're tight as shit, musically speaking. A lot of bands would be out of their element on a stage that wasn't their own, and wouldn't sound their best, but not The Tragically Hip. This being a group of musicians who have spent their two decades on the Canadian music scene honing every aspect of their craft, and 20 years of musical refinement produces the sort of awards-show performance seen last night. As for the normally laconic, if not reticent, Gordon Downie, he showed that he becomes a whirling dervish -- vocally, facially, and bodily -- not to mention an improvisational madman, on stage. Proof positive of the latter were his whimsical discussions about -- and with -- the mic and its stand during "Fully Completely" and "Grace, Too." (Yelled into the mic after trying unsuccessfully to right it and its knocked-over stand with his foot: "Where do you think you're going? You're a microphone" -- turning to the still-fallen stand and pointing at it accusingly, thumb cocked -- "and a microphone stand! You think you could make on your own? You wouldn't last five seconds! Here, watch! Watch! Go!" Then he released the now-rejoined mic and stand, stood back with his hands on his hips, head rolling and face contorting, and shot an equally smug and scornful glare at the offending objects.)
I'm not sure why, but I've been in a Hip frame of mind lately, even before the Junos. Perhaps as a bulwark against the anti-Canadianism floating around recently. Or maybe I'm just tired of the generic pop shite on the radio -- Ottawa radio, that is -- these days. Whatever the reason, I've been feeling increasingly guilty about not having bought the band's last three albums -- 2000's Music @ Work, 2002's In Violet Light, and 2004's In Between Evolution -- yet; that, and not having been to one of its shows in over a third of its career. I've had the privilege of attending two of The Hip's concerts over the years: the first at a packed arena in Canada, and the second at a cozy, standing-room-only club south of the border; I loved both, but the latter was truly spectacular -- and not just because I was rocking out at the bar the whole time. (Ah, if only it had been a buck and a half for a beer...)
posted by media_dystopia @ 05:32 [ link | top | home ]
Sunday, April 03, 2005
The cultural dictates of semicolons. Judging from Use of Weapons, Iain Banks is part of the great British semicolon conspiracy: semicolons frequently being used in place of commas, periods, dashes, and -- my favorite -- colons. Don't get me wrong, I like semicolons; I use them all the time, and for a variety of purposes -- but I don't introduce explanatory clauses with them, or string together (rather than list) a seemingly endless number of non-comma-containing phrases with them, or use them when other kinds of punctuation are clearly called, no, screamed for. Do I always use semicolons correctly? Absolutely not. But I do struggle with their use, while Banks and, to a lesser degree, Jeff Noon -- compared to the Scotsman, Vurt's author is a semicolon dilettante -- seemingly do not; at least, their wanton use of them doesn't suggest as much. Another Brit thing seems to be the use of single quotation marks in lieu of double ones, and vice versa; both authors are equally guilty of that offense (as seen through North American eyes). Don't worry, Banks' punctuation doesn't affect his imaginative storytelling any -- it just detracts from my reading, is all; the semicolons, in particular, tend to make me grumble and say, "Stop doing that!" (I imagine my writing, with its interminable use of dashes -- among other sins -- does the same to people; mind you, I haven't published 20-plus books.)
My semicolon reaction notwithstanding, it would be an understatement to say that I'm glad I picked up Use of Weapons and gave the Culture another go. In fact, soon after I started reading it, I bought Inversions and re-bought Consider Phlebas; I'm really looking forward to reading them and any others under the Iain M. Banks pseudonym -- the middle initial denoting his science fiction -- I can find used. Years after reading Consider Phlebas, the Culture is now fascinating to me. (Go figure.) I'm certainly eager to read more inspirational descriptions of the massive General Systems Vehicles (GSVs) and other Culture spaceships; for some reason, those sections of Use of Weapons enthralled me. (Hmm, perhaps I should be reading more space opera...) That being said, I'm going to go with Adam Roberts' Stone next, if anything, to see if he, too, is in on the conspiracy.
posted by media_dystopia @ 16:15 [ link | top | home ]