Greg R. Fishbone

WOTD: Mothers

2008-05-11T20:05:46Z

Today's word of the day is Mothers, the most beautiful people in the world.

Happy day to all the moms out there!

Book Review Theater: Stuck in the 70s by D.L. Garfinkle

2008-05-10T16:08:04Z

Goodreads has a 10,000-character limit on book reviews? Who knew! My Word of the Day: 70's post actually reads much better when edited down to that length, so I'm posting it here in that form.

Stuck in the 70's by D.L. Garfinkle
Putnam (2007)

** spoiler alert **

Randomly surfing channels last weekend, I came across a classic "Three's Company" episode in which Mrs. Roper takes a cafeteria job because she's fed up by the miserly allowance her husband gives her to maintain the household. This episode from 1979 remained in my head as I read Trapped in the 70's by D.L. Garfinkle, which is set in 1978.

In the novel, Mr. and Mrs. Grey are a typical California couple having marital difficulties to which their children, 17-year-old Tyler and 15-year-old Heather, remain willfully blind. Mr. Grey has become absorbed in his work and isolated from his family, while Mrs. Grey is unfulfilled to the point where she cries herself to sleep at night. A crisis point is reached when Mrs. Grey takes a job at, yes, a cafeteria, just like Mrs. Roper. But instead of being prodded to her act of rebellion by a pair of spunky 20-something tenants named Janet and Chrissy, Mrs. Grey finds her encouragement from Shay Saunders, a time-traveling teen from the early 21st Century.

The story of women's lib and marital strife is really just a subplot of Trapped in the 70's, with the main story being a boy-meets-girl drama in which the boy is a 1978 native while the girl is an unwilling visitor from 2006 who appears one night, naked and unconscious in the family bathtub--which, come to think of it, is similar to how Jack Tripper ended up living with Janet and Chrissy in "Three's Company." The narrative of the book shifts back and forth between Tyler and Shay, with margin tags and alternate fonts to help readers tell which protagonist is speaking.

As a disclaimer, Debra Garfinkle is a friend, so I am greatly biased in favor of her book. I'm likewise biased in favor of books about time travel, and ones in which beautiful naked girls suddenly appear in random bathtubs on page one.

Four observations:

1. Star Wars was still in the theater at this time of this book, mostly because teens like Tyler and his friend Evie kept going back for multiple viewings. Younger kids like me did as well--I was seven and probably went to at least a dozen showings. Evie especially is obsessed with the character-themed collectibles. I understand trademark sensitivities when writing a book like Stuck in the 70's, but in real life Tyler would have relentlessly pumped Shay for every tiny detail about the next five movies. Also in the real world, Shay would have called up George Lucas and warned him not to create Jar-Jar Binks.

2. Strange that Tyler doesn't mention (or doesn't realize) that Shay didn't come from the future entirely by herself. She also brought with her a bathtubful of 2006 water. If only somebody had thought to save a sample, it could have been analyzed against water that hadn't travelled back 28 years in time. Perhaps it would have been different on a subatomic level, or would have shown quantum entanglement with the 1978 version of its molecules. Great mysteries of the universe might have been solved by even a tiny drop.

3. It was interesting that Tyler's and Shay's school, which each of them attended in their respective eras, did not seem to have changed much in 28 years while the local mall underwent a major transformation. Shay instantly masters the politics of popularity in the 1978 cafeteria, but she is nearly crippled by the lack of a Starbucks, Victoria's Secret, or frozen yogurt stand. I've had a similar experience. The mall my family shopped at when I was a kid has since expanded from two anchor stores to four, added a food court, tacked on a second level, and most recently popped out an entire new wing of upscale trendy shops and restaurants. Meanwhile my old high school, essentially unchanged since it first opened in 1973, is now considered inadequate and obsolete. A new $200 million school is currently under construction to replace it.

4. From the setup--modern teen travels back in time by, more or less, a single human generation within the town of his or her own birth--I expected Stuck in the 70's to be more in the mold of Back to the Future. One of the things I took for granted was that Shay would run into her mother as a teenager, or the parents of friends from her own time. She does run into her future housekeeper but that's really not a substitute for Marty McFly trying to set his future father up with his future mother.

I also expected that there would be a "closing of the circle" that time-travel stories are known for. One way or another, Shay is going back to 2006--either by some sort of time machine or by living through those 28 years and aging accordingly. She could even die before 2006 and still "close the circle" by sending a message to her mother on the day after her disappearance. I maintained the expectation of a closed circle until the very last page because I couldn't help thinking of this book as primarily a time-travel story, but it's not. The essence of the book, when the setup and setting are boiled away, is all about identity and percpetion.

Mrs. Grey is only one of several characters in the book who, through the chain of events begun by Shay's slip through time, come to realize that they are not being true to their inner selves. Mrs. Grey develops a life outside the home, Mr. Grey starts to appreciate his family more, Shay develops some much needed self-esteem, Evie learns to express herself, and Tyler gets a new haircut and bitchin' surfer duds.

This is what separates novels like Stuck in the 70's from sitcoms like "Three's Company," in which characters are not allowed to learn and grow from their experiences. At the end of the episode I described above, Mrs. Roper simply quits her job and Mr. Roper gives her a raise in her allowance--enough so that she'll now be able to buy the maple syrup he likes when she does the weekly shopping. The episode ends with the status quo restored, which is the golden rule of 70s sitcoms.

Would I, as a teen in the mid-1980s, have picked Stuck in the 70's off the shelf to read? Actually, I can avoid answering that because this book, as a time-travel story with teen protagonists that also includes underage drinking, sex, and drug use, would not have existed in the mid-1980s. But if a copy had somehow fallen through a temporal wormhole from 2007 and landed on my desk in 1986, I think I would have been disappointed by not seeing that circle closed at the end. Which is why I'm proposing an alternate ending as my latest episode of Book Review Theater!

<BOOK-REVIEW-THEATER>

Exterior, night, outside Jake Robbins's house in 2006. Three adults in their mid-forties sneak up the front walkway and hide in the bushes. They are TYLER, EVIE, and SHAY.

TYLER (nodding at an illuminated window above): So you're up there?

SHAY: Yeah.

TYLER: Right now?

SHAY: Yeah.

TYLER: Having sex with...Jack?

SHAY: Jake. And it's not me, you know that. It's my seventeen-year-old former self from the future.

EVIE: Except the future is now the present.

TYLER: I should go in there and break that up.

SHAY (grabs his arm): Don't you dare!

EVIE: We can't afford to mess this up, Tyler. We only get one shot and the entire space-time continuum depends on making things happen the way they're destined to.

SHAY: But I do appreciate your overprotective nature...Dad.

TYLER (blushes): I only had that one-night stand with your mother in 1987 because the paternity test said I had to, or else Shay wouldn't exist. You know Evie's my one true love.

EVIE: Thanks, babe. Hey, here comes Mariel!

MARIEL steps up the walkway and glances into the bushes. Shay flashes her a thumbs-up signal. Mariel nods and begins pressing the doorbell over and over again. A crude dragonfly tatoo can be seen on her wrist.

SHAY (winces): I told her not to get that tatoo.

EVIE: She had to, so things could happen exactly the way you remember. That's why Mariel had to take a job as your family's housekeeper and pretend to only speak broken English. I bet that's been almost as hard for her as it's been for me to get any work done without my best lab assistant.

TYLER: But you did get the time machine done, right?

EVIE: You bet! Funded by the enormous fortune we've amassed using Shay's knowledge of stock results and sports scores for the past 28 years, and using my obsessive investigations into quantum mechanics and the secret files Tyler obtained as Albert Einstein's official biographer, I've wired up Jake's Jacuzzi to a working flux capacitor...in theory.

SHAY AND TYLER: In theory?!!

EVIE: I had no chance for a test run. 1.21 gigawatts of electricity doesn't grow on trees.

TYLER (as Mariel is finally let into the house by a towel-wearing Jake Robbins): She's in. Now we just listen and wait for the signal.

SHAY (listening to a portable radio receiver): She's reaming teen-me out in Spanish. That really takes me back. I don't know how Mariel ever put up with-- Oh, there's the code word!

EVIE presses a button on a remote control device. The street lights dim, then come back up. The trio anxiously watch the window above them.

MARIEL's voice from Shay's receiver: What you do with her? Where she go? Where you hide her?

JAKE's voice from Shay's receiver: I don't know! I didn't do nothing! Please don't call the cops--I don't want to go to jail!

TYLER, SHAY, and EVIE break down laughing.

SHAY: Mariel's getting her revenge. Poor Jake--I almost feel sorry for him.

TYLER: I'll give her another ten minutes, then Jake's getting a visit from Shay's father.

EVIE: Go get him, babe!

Caption across the screen: AND WITH THAT THE CIRCLE WAS CLOSED, THE END.

</BOOK-REVIEW-THEATER>

WOTD: 70s

2008-05-10T06:47:14Z

Today's word of the day is 70s, a ten-year period of polyester and platform shoes, when disco balls ruled the world.

I'm starting this post with a classic television show followed by a segue into a work of modern YA fiction--stick around if you're interested in that and feel free to leave early if you're not. Also, if you're looking for a comprehensive survey of how the spirit of a decade can be reflected in contemporary artifacts as well as nostalgic works with the benefit of distance and context, I can't really help you, since all I've got are two stories from or about the 70s which happened to come at me from two directions at roughly the same time...

First, randomly surfing channels last weekend, my wife and I came across a marathon showing of classic "Three's Company" episodes from the late 1970s. We had to watch a few, in memory of the late John Ritter, who was so funny and full of life on that show.

If you're not familiar with this series, it was adapted from a britcom called "Man About the House" about one single man and two single women sharing a single apartment in an arrangement that was totally innocent, or would have been if not for all the other people assuming it wasn't. In the United States, "Three's Company" milked double entendres and unlikely misunderstandings for eight seasons, which was enough time for a very young me to grow into its sensibilities and then beyond them. But the life lesson of "Three's Company," boiled down to "don't jump to any assumptions based solely on overheard snippets of conversation," remains drilled into my head and has served me well ever since.

Four observations:

1. My wife and I wondered whether Norman "Mr. Roper" Fell was still alive. I didn't think he was but had to had to look it up to be sure. He died in 1998. Cancer. He was 74.

2. What about Mrs. Roper? Was she still alive, and did she ever appear in any other major roles? Audra Lindey died in 1997. Leukemia. She was 79.

Aside from "Three's Company" and her co-starring role in its spinoff, "The Ropers," Lindey's IMDB page reads like a brief history of television. It starts in the 1950s, when shows were named for their corporate sponsors and helpfully included the word "television" in the title because people were still likely to try tuning them in with a radio. If you were looking for Audra Lindey in those days, your viewing options boiled down to whether she was being sponsored by an aluminum producer, an electronics company, or the makers of individually wrapped slices of American cheese.

In the 1960s, Lindey did shows with promising sci-fi or occult-type names like "Another World," "Search for Tomorrow," and "The Edge of Night," all of which, upon further research, turned out to be ordinary daytime soap operas.

In the early 1970s, Lindey was all about the sitcoms. "Chico and the Man," "Maude," "Barnaby Jones..." I'm not sure the last one was a sitcom, but what else could you do with a name like Barnaby other than work as a circus clown? During and after "Three's Company," Lindey made TV movies, guested on shows like "Matlock," "Tales from the Crypt," "Murder, She Wrote," "Friends," and "Cybil," and even had a few theatrical releases. Long story short, she kept very busy!

3. The economics of 1979 were such that a two-bedroom apartment near the beach in Santa Monica cost $300 per month--and every month was a new struggle for three working adults to pay the rent. All right, make that two working adults plus Chrissy. And Jack was attending cooking school, so he had an excuse for being perpetually short on cash. But Janet had a solid job at the flower shop, so no reason for her to complain about beachfront living on $3.50 a day.

4. There's a line in the opening theme song that doesn't sound like English and goes something like "Dominominay voo." I always assumed it was French, back before the Internet made lyric searches so quick and painless, so now... "Down at our rendezvous!" Of course! It's only half-French!

These episodes showcased 70s hair and clothing styles, 70s technology, and 70s moral values. We see the singles' scene before AIDS--without any mention of STDs, really, but specifically without the foreknowledge that a fatal new disease would soon put an end to the Sexual Revolution. We see outrageous stereotypes based around the fascade of presumed homosexuality that Jack Tripper must affect for the sake of his landlord, Mr. Roper, who can apparently accept gays more readily than he can acknowledge the possibility of platonic friendships between members of the opposite sex. And we see some then-controvercial issues of feminism.

Case in point, one episode featured Mrs. Roper taking a cafeteria job because she's fed up by the miserly allowance her husband gives her to maintain the household. This was an episode from 1979, just a stone's throw from the 80s, so recent and so blatant that I could hardly believe it was thought up by late 70s sitcom writers for a late 70s show that was broadcast to a late 70s audience as just another episode.

Because I'd so recently watched this "Three's Company" episode, it was hard not to keep it in mind while reading Trapped in the 70s by D.L. Garfinkle, which is set in 1978.

[Edit: My review of the novel and Book Review Theater are now in a separate post.]

What separates novels like Stuck in the 70s from sitcoms like "Three's Company," is that episodic shows don't allow character to learn and grow from their experiences. Or maybe they're a little better at character development than they used to be back in the 70s. At the end of the episode I described above, Mrs. Roper simply quits her job and Mr. Roper gives her a raise in her allowance--enough so that she'll now be able to buy the maple syrup he likes when she does the weekly shopping. The episode ends with the status quo restored, which is the golden rule of 70s sitcoms.

WOTD: Lexicon

2008-05-05T22:18:27Z

Today's word of the day is Lexicon, a compendium of words and meanings taken from a body of source material.

When Orson Scott Card speaks his mind, he's always entertaining even when (or especially when) he mangles facts and logic to reach conclusions diametrically opposed to my own. But he also has an infamous tendency to overreach and express some ugly and indefensible views. Most recently he got downright personal and ad hominem about the copyright infringement lawsuit between J.K. Rowling and a publisher that is attempting to publish a fan's lexicon of the Harry Potterverse.

Card is outraged that Rowling would have the audacity to block a derivative work when her own series is so "obviously" derivative of works that have come before--including his own.

I feel like the plot of my novel Ender's Game was stolen by J.K. Rowling.

A young kid growing up in an oppressive family situation suddenly learns that he is one of a special class of children with special abilities, who are to be educated in a remote training facility where student life is dominated by an intense game played by teams flying in midair, at which this kid turns out to be exceptionally talented and a natural leader. He trains other kids in unauthorized extra sessions, which enrages his enemies, who attack him with the intention of killing him; but he is protected by his loyal, brilliant friends and gains strength from the love of some of his family members. He is given special guidance by an older man of legendary accomplishments who previously kept the enemy at bay. He goes on to become the crucial figure in a struggle against an unseen enemy who threatens the whole world.

This paragraph lists only the most prominent similarities between Ender's Game and the Harry Potter series. My book was published in England many years before Rowling began writing about Harry Potter. Rowling was known to be reading widely in speculative fiction during the era after the publication of my book.

Of course there are only four, five, seven, or sixty-four types of stories under the sun, depending on how you count them, including any number of epics about a young hero whose powerful mentor provides special training in an arcane skill, and who picks up friends and allies during a quest to confront and defeat a powerful evil menacing the land, world, galaxy, or universe. Ender Wiggin could be said to be a tragic hero in the tradition of Odysseus, since both are unwittingly or unwillingly manipulated into devising a sneak attack that wipes out an entire civilization (Buggers for Ender and Troy for Odysseus). In case you think Card's story descriptions are so eerily similar that they just have to be true, check out J.L. Bell's similar comparison between Harry Potter and the origin story that turned Dick Grayson into Robin, Boy Wonder.

Card's first bit of intellectual dishonesty comes from equivocating the common and unavoidable use of traditional archtypes with the verbatim lifting of text and descriptions--which is what I understand to be the central issue in the Lexicon lawsuit. Card then goes on for quite a bit about what a greedy, thieving, frivolous hypocrite he believes Rowling to be, what a "pretentious puffed-up coward" she is not to make Dumbledore's sexual orientation explicit in the books, and how she's surely "blown her wad" of creativity and is now incapable of writing any other books in the future. He also calls her insane, pathetic, ungrateful, bullying, and implies that she's being manipulated by a small army of suck-ups.

Card is entitled to his opinions just as I'm entitled to mine--which are that J.K. Rowling displays as much creativity and originality as any author can when writing within a long-established genre, that she has every right to protect her intellectual property, and that Orson Scott Card has just made himself look like a jealous twit with delusions of overinflated importance.

But if I can't deny Card his right to hold an unsubstantiated opinion or two, I also can't let him off the hook for his seemingly deliberate twisting of fact. There's no way an author as long-established and successful as Card could be as ignorant of copyright law as he pretends. As I said above, he starts by conflating things that aren't given copyright protection (basic plots and broad character archtypes) with things that are given copyright protection (the actual words Rowling uses and her exclusive right to control derivative works outside of established fair use exceptions). Card applies a misrepresentation of the facts to his misrepresentation of the law to arrive at a reckless and irresponsible prediction:

I fully expect that the outcome of this lawsuit will be:

1. Publication of Lexicon will go on without any problem or prejudice, because it clearly falls within the copyright law's provision for scholarly work, commentary and review.

2. Rowling will be forced to pay Steven Vander Ark's legal fees, since her suit was utterly without merit from the start.

3. People who hear about this suit will have a sour taste in their mouth about Rowling from now on. Her Cinderella story once charmed us. Her greedy evil-witch behavior now disgusts us. And her next book will be perceived as the work of that evil witch.

Talk about sour grapes! The reality of fact and law must be more complex and muddled than Card presents, or else the presiding judge would not be urging the parties to arrive at a settlement "because there are strong issues in this case and it could come out one way or the other. The fair use doctrine is not clear." It's safe to say that Rowling has at least a few arguable claims in her (and Warner Brothers's) 1,100-page complaint, and that her reputation won't be damaged to nearly the extent that Card is hoping and wishing for.

The Lexicon in question would be a subset of materials taken from an online encyclopedia of the people, places, creatures, spells, and objects of the Harry Potter series. The Lexicon would include descriptions quoted or adapted from the Harry Potter books, stills from the Harry Potter movies, contributions from presumably uncompensated online contributors, and some amount of original commentary and organization.

The ratio of these things would be one element determining how strong the case is that the work infringes on rights held by Rowling and Warner Brothers. Another element would be the extent to which the unofficial and unauthorized Lexicon damages the market for an official and authorized version that Rowling is said to be working on.

Pending a final ruling or settlement between the parties, I'll let J.K. Rowling's filing within the lawsuit also serve as an indictment of Orson Scott Card's attempts at character assassination and legal analysis:

"...I am deeply troubled by the portrayal of my efforts to protect and preserve the copyrights I have been granted in the Harry Potter books and feel betrayed by Steven Vander Ark, as a person who calls himself a fan. I am particularly concerned about [publishing company RDR Books's] continued insistance that my acceptance of free, fan-based websites somehow justifies its efforts to publish for profit an unauthorized Harry Potter "lexicon" directly contrary to my stated intention to publish my own definitive Harry Potter encyclopedia. Such a position penalizes copyright owners like me for encouraging and supporting the activities of their respective fan communities....

"RDR's position that fans of the Harry Potter series can simply buy two encyclopedias is both presumptuous and insensitive. RDR's position is presuptuous because it assumes that everyone would want to have two Harry Potter encyclopedias and insensitive in thinking that everyone that would want both could afford to purchase both. Although Harry Potter is now a worldwide success, it had its roots in a time when I was very far from wealthy. While I am extremely fortunate now, having had periods in my life when I worried about having enough money to feed and clothe my daughter, it is obvious to me that many people do not have money to buy every book that appeals to them....

"For seven years, Harry Potter was nothing more than an ever-growing pile of paper and notebooks on which I worked very hard whenever I could make the time. By the time of the publication of the seventh novel, I had been writing about Harry Potter for 17 years. As a result I feel intensely protective, firstly, of the literary world I spent so long creating, and secondly, of the fans who bought my books in such huge numbers. I feel that I have a duty to these readers to ensure, as far as possible, that Harry Potter does not become associated with substandard versions.... I believe that RDR's book constitutes a Harry Potter 'rip-off' of the type I have spent years trying to prevent....

"I am very frustrated that a former fan has tried to co-opt my work for financial gain. The Harry Potter books are full of moral choices and ethical dilemas, and, ironically, Mr. Vander Ark's actions tend to demonstrate that he is woefully unfit to represent himself as either a "fan of" or "expert on" books whose spirit he seems entirely to have missed...."

WOTD: Orphan Works

2008-05-04T16:41:18Z

Today's word of the day is Orphan Works, copyrighted works for which it is difficult or impossible to locate the copyright holder.

Some of you might remember the Orphan Works Bill from a couple years ago during the last wave of copyright reform legislation. The bill included a controversial provision to carve out a copyright exception for "orphan works" whose owners couldn't be reasonably identified. The number of orphan works has been growing annually since 1976, when the United States changed from a limited-term opt-in copyright system to an opt-out system that remains in effect, potentially, for generations (currently the creator's lifetime plus 70 years).

Every story, email, or blog post you write automatically falls under copyright protection. So does every picture you draw and every photograph you take. Since everything you do is brilliant, and since everyone is still entitled to the standard "15 minutes of fame" treatment, it stands to reason that somebody will eventually want to share your words or images with the world, sometime before the copyright expires in the year 2078 or later. If the work has your name on it, it might be relatively easy for somebody to find you and obtain your permission to reprint or adapt your stuff. If all they have is an excerpt that doesn't include your name, they might find you by doing a search for the work online or in a database of similar material. But after that, the search may become too time-consuming or expensive to be worth their while.

When orphan works go out of print, or if they're not widely distributed in the first place, they may become lost to history. They are less likely to be reprinted for fear that some copyright holder will someday step forward with a fat infringement suit. This mainly concerns big publishers and other corporate interests, but individual book creators like me might also need to obtain rights for a poem, picture, or song lyrics to be included in a larger story--and it's a real hassle if these turn out to be orphans.

Photographers, graphic designers, children's book illustrators, and other visual artists had issues with the Orphan Works Bill because their works are most likely to be circulated without attribution and appropriated under the proposed law without recourse and with only nominal recompense. Authors and musicians would have been affected as well, but to a lesser extent, because text and lyrics can be searched for more easily than pixels.

The original Orphan Works Bill fizzled out in 2006, but now it's back in the form of two similar versions introduced in April 2008 in the House and Senate. Some of the old concerns have been addressed and new ones introduced. There's no telling yet whether the current bill will be defeated, amended, or passed as written, but the potential remains for some big changes to our collective rights and protections.

I'll post updates if there are further developments with the bill, but authors and illustrators should keep this issue on their radar screens.

WOTD: Canon Sue

2008-05-03T14:23:33Z

Today's word of the day is Canon Sue, a stereotypically perfect fan-fictionesque character who appears in the official version of a story.

When the odometer clicked around onto the 200th episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit", the producers celebrated with a very special episode starring Robin Williams. I could have said "featuring Robin Williams" or "with a special appearance by Robin Williams" but "starring" really is the most appropriate word. This was "Robin Williams: Special Victims Unit" with a supporting cast of SVU regulars.

Robin portrays Merrit Rook, a brilliant engineer with a tragic past, a disarming sense of humor, and a problem with authority. On trial for an anti-corporate prank that went too far, Rook chooses to defend himself in court. Despite having no legal training or court-appointed advisor, Rook dismantles the A.D.A.'s case, destroys an expert witness on cross-examination, and handily wins over all twelve members of the jury. His anarchist politics and clever mind win him the fawning adoration of the entire city including Sergeant Munch, who attends a Central Park rally in Rook's honor. When necessary, Rook's sympathetic backstory allows him to deflect criticism and monopolize the camera with emotional soliloquies. When a squadron of New York's Finest attempt to arrest Rook on a second charge, while he is unarmed and in a crowded public space, he manages to not only slip away but to disarm and kidnap veteran detective Olivia Benson in the process. After playing psychological mind games with Detective Stabler, Rook dramatically escapes from custody and vanishes, seemingly into thin air.

Something bothered me about this episode, but it wasn't until later that it hit me... Merrit Rook is a Mary Sue, or a Marty Stu, or Gary Gnu, or whatever you want to call the male version of...this:

Mary Sue is perfect. All of her friends are colorful. Or, alternately, they may be the palest of shadows next to the glow of her magnificence. She speaks at least seven languages and can communicate with small woodland creatures. She knows all about quantum physics. She has an excellent singing voice and plays at least one instrument -- probably guitar, violin, or flute, even in worlds where these instruments do not exist. She becomes, without effort, a world-class expert at anything she puts her hand to.

In fanfic she is often better than the canon hero in the hero's field of expertise. She will lecture canon heroes and canon villains on how to overcome their flaws, and can singlehandedly convert an Evil Overlord to the side of light simply by the power of her Goodness.

The problem with Mary Sues of either gender is that they are too good to be true and/or interesting. They overshadow the other characters, they lack emotional depth, and they often represent some idealized version of the author. They are, generally, a bad idea. The writing on "SVU" is strong enough to almost offset these issues but, in addition to not explaining how Rook is able to become a world-class defense attorney overnight, the character's emotional substance comes from a backstory in which he somehow became a world-class obstetrician overnight and correctly diagnosed a problem with his pregnant wife, only to have the actual doctor disagree and end up negligently killing the wife and newborn child.

Before this week, I'd have had a hard time imagining a Mary Sue in the "Law & Order" universe. The "Law & Order" franchise, for a long time, attempted to heighten its realism by using guest actors who weren't recognizable from other roles. When big-name actors appeared, they were used in smaller roles that allowed them to go against their usual casting. The show delves a little into psychology, when the police or district attorney need to get into a criminal's head to put them away, but the main focus has always been on procedure.

But I can understand that when you have an A-list actor willing to do the show--with some arm twisting from his off-stage friend, Richard Belzer, from what I understand--you want to showcase him as much as possible. So they let him impersonate a cop. They had him out-lawyer the lawyers. They had him manipulate the detective. He becomes an explosives expert overnight, and an experimental psychologist, and a social networking expert, and a shepherd, and a voice actor, and a cult celebrity, and as a teenager he drove a violent gang out of his neighborhood by burning down their clubhouse. Suddenly Merrit Rook is a Mary Sue in the canon of the show: a Canon Sue!

There's a writing lesson here, that if tropes that are usually associated with sloppy or amaturish writing can slip into the professional writing machine of "Law & Order", they can slip into anyone's writing at any time.

Be careful out there!!!

POTD: Mr. Squirrely

2008-04-27T21:11:31Z

I thought it would be fun to do a few Picture of the Day blog entries instead of my usual Word of the Day ones. This little guy is currently Picture of the Day at Wikipedia, and comes with a creative commons license that allows for remixing and redistribution. So...what to do with him? Write a story? Write a poem? Make a comic strip?

"Girlie-Girlie, woke up early, went to play with Mr. Squrirely..."

That could be the start of a picture book. Either that or a jumprope rhyme.

Eichhörnchen Düsseldorf Hofgarten edit.jpg from commons.wikimedia.org, provided by Fabien1309

WOTD: Reading

2008-04-27T01:39:21Z

Today's word of the day is: Reading

I did a reading this week at Cornerstone Books in Salem, Massachusetts. The Witch City!

On my way to the bookstore, I passed storefront signs for other readings, mostly involving tarot cards, palmistry, or Kirlian auras. In Salem, those kinds of readings happen a lot more frequently than the author kind. It made me wonder if there might also be a way to use my book to predict the future. Ask a question, turn to a random page, and maybe the third word in the seventh sentence will give you the answer you seek? Let's see...

"Can I actually predict the future with The Penguins of Doom?"

Page 86 says... "mother's"

It's open to interpretation, but there's got to be something there.

My reading took place on a gorgeous day in the middle of Massachusetts public school Spring Vacation Week, so I wasn't really expecting many kids to show up. "You spent your spring break where? The bookstore?" There actually were a couple kids who came in, but they just wanted to grab a quick book and be on their way. One grabbed my book as well as the latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and is not the first person to tell me that the two are complementary titles, so I will have to look into that further.

The audience members who stayed were children's and YA authors with questions about the publishing process, so that's what we talked about. It wasn't what I'd planned, but I had a really great time and sold a few books in the process.

I can also say that Cornerstone Books is a great place to find a book, and to linger with it and have a great cup of coffee or tea. Thanks so much to them for hosting me!

WOTD: Workshop

2008-04-15T15:48:50Z

Today's word of the day is: Workshop

I'm back from Nashua, where the New England SCBWI conference was a huge success and my four-hour workshop on web design and blogging was well-attended and well-received. The grand finale was a live update of my website to include news about the presentation itself, thanks to a kind volunteer photographer in the audience.

That's my new website design in the background, and see how exhausted I looked by that point? Since I was presenting for both sessions on Sunday, I didn't get to attend the equally well-received workshops going on at the same time:

Toni Buzzeo on self-promotion;
Brian Lies and Lita Judge on illustration;
Sarah Aronson on point of view;
Harold Underdown on an overview of the basics;
Debra Garfinkle on humor writing;
Emily Herman and Anne Sibley O'Brien on writing tools;
Sarah Shumway on pitches; or
The Write Sisters (Janet Buell, Kathy Deady, Muriel Dubois, Diane Mayr, Andrea Murphy, Barbara Turner, and Sally Wilkins) on critique groups and collaboration

In fact, with all of those other workshops going on, I was amazed that anyone wanted to come to mine at all. We really did have a great group of authors and illustrators who peppered me with enough questions to last the entire time--and we probably could have gone for another four hours if I hadn't lost my voice by then. Thanks, everybody!

WOTD: Twenty

2008-04-12T13:54:11Z

Today's word of the day is: Twenty

The 22nd Annual New England SCBWI conference is in full swing and, in fact, I'm blogging on my phone from Laurie Halse Anderson's keynote (and she's very funny and inspiring, of course).

John Bell, Debby Garfinkle, and I arrived here yesterday afternoon by way of visiting the baby--who was thankfully well behaved for her visitors. I brought a photo album with me to Nashua, and conference critique registrar Valarie Giogas had her baby's pictures as well, so it felt more like a baby conference than a writing conference. The Honorable Carrie Jones (D-Ellsworth hopeful) said the pictures were "made of awesome" which goes to demonstrate her cool sense of language, wonderful sense of humor, and great taste in babies.

But getting back to the topic of writing, a disturbing moment... I had a discussion with someone who "read somewhere" a general rule that it takes 20 rejection letters before a first book publication. This statistic might be a general average, and I probably had almost that many myself, but this author was multiple-submitting unpolished manuscripts as quickly as possible to get her 20 rejections out of the way. Please, please, please don't do this! There are so many paths to publication that there's a different one for every author and every book. Collecting rejection letters like they're bottle-caps that can be turned in for "Pepsi stuff" is not the way!

Meanwhile, Laurie is still speaking. She's taken a picture of the audience for her blog--I'll add a link later as well as a photo of the view from the back of the room. You won't believe how many creative, talented, and committed folks that have gathered together in a single place.

Update:

WOTD: Road Trip

2008-04-11T16:06:26Z

Today's word of the day is: Road Trip!

Last weekend was baby's first road trip to New York for her cousin's 2nd birthday party. Baby was quiet and well-behaved on the ride down and back, four hours each way. Baby loves to travel--who knew?

This weekend I'm off to Nashua, sans baby, but I am bringing along
dlgarfinkle
and John Bell. It's New England SCBWI conference time and Debby is giving workshops on writing series, writing humor, and breaking the rules; John is giving a workshop on plotting challenges in children's book; and I'm giving a double-session workshop on how authors and illustrators can establish and maintain an online presence using websites, blogs, and social networking. This car ride is going to be a workshop factory on wheels!

Feedback Survey: Social Networking

2008-04-04T16:10:09Z

Another chunk of my workshop is going to be on the topic of social networking and the use of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. In addition to those are author/illustrator networks like JacketFlap and DeviantART, and general book networks like Library Thing, GoodReads, and Shelfari.

Here are my questions for you...

If you are an author or illustrator, my questions for you are...

Which social networking sites do you belong to?
If you don't use social networking sites, what have been your primary deterrents?
Do you prefer different sites for different purposes?
What are your "rules" for requesting, accepting, or rejecting potential "friends"?
How do you use the sites to promote or raise awareness of your writing?
How do you use the sites to keep track of what other authors/illustrators are up to?
How much time do you spend on social networking sites, and does it interfere with your writing/illustrating time?
What would be helpful for you to know at a workshop about social networking?

If you are a bookseller, librarian, teacher, or reader, my questions are:

Does having an author or illustrator's in your friend list influence your reading decisions?
Does an author or illustrator on a social networking site seem more approachable?
Have you corresponded with authors or illustrators through social networking that you would not have contacted otherwise?

You can email me in private, leave a comment here, or link to an elaboration on your own blog and I'll compile the best suggestions for everyone's benefit. Thanks for your help!

And oh yeah, as of this week...

Feedback Survey Results: Author/Illustrator Websites

2008-04-04T15:54:34Z

I got some great feedback on author/illustrator websites for my workshop -- what people have done, what they look for in other sites, and what can often be improved. I was worried that I might get too technical and nitpicky so this was a good reality check and it's a lot of common sense.

A site should be unique, personal, and convey the personality of its owner who, in the case of an author or illustrator, is expected to be creative, expressive, and professional.
A site doesn't have to be professionally designed and developed but many that aren't look amateurish or unfinished. Do-it-yourselfers should look into using professional templates. I like to browse Open Source Web Design for ideas.
Contact information should be easy to find, and methods should be used to limit the harvesting of email addresses by spambots.
Sites should be clean and uncluttered, easy to navigate, and consistent from page to page.
Some author only update their sites sporadically, once or twice a year at most, in a process that requires the intervention of a web developer. With the web options available in 2008, many of which require no technical skill or HTML knowledge, this is simply unacceptable.

I've used this workshop as an excuse to redesign my website from scratch, using a blogging software called WordPress as a content management system. Still in beta right now, but it should be presentable by the conference.

Feedback Survey: Author/Illustrator Websites

2008-04-02T13:36:32Z

Later this month I'll be in New Hampshire for the 22nd Annual New England SCBWI conference. I'll be presenting a two-part workshop on establishing and maintaining an online presence for authors and illustrators--"online presence" being the term I'm using for the virtual version of yourself that may be the first impression someone gets of you and your books.

I probably have enough material already, between websites, blogs, social networks, electronic newsletters, and other things, but I'm very interested in broadening my presentation with ideas that have worked well for other people.

So...let's start with websites!

If you are an author or illustrator with a website, my questions for you are...

What were the design and content considerations that went into your site?
How often do you change or update your site?
What resources do you provide that aren't available anywhere else?
Did you create your own site or hire a designer?
What are some of your favorite author or illustrator sites and what do you like about them?
What would be helpful for you to know at a workshop about establishing and maintaining an online presence?

If you are a bookseller, librarian, teacher, or reader, my questions are:

Does an author or illustrator's website influence your reading decisions?
What author or illustrator's websites have made you more enthusiastic about a book and why?
What are some of your favorite author or illustrator sites and what do you like about them?
If you could give an author or illustrator one piece of advice about designing a website, what would it be?

You can email me in private, leave a comment here, or link to an elaboration on your own blog and I'll compile the best suggestions for everyone's benefit. Thanks for your help!

WOTD: Cawwie

2008-04-01T01:47:54Z

Today's word of the day is: Cawwie

It's going to be an interesting election this year. There will eventually be a presidential nominee from each of the major parties. If you live in the right state, you'll be able to vote either for or against comedian Al Franken. And if you're very, very lucky, you'll be in the right part of Maine to help elect YA author and 2k7er Carrie Jones to the state legislature.

I'll be voting in Massachusetts, so I'll have to support Carrie from afar -- but I will be wearing my button and lending my support. Carrie is one of the coolest, nicest, and most genuine people I've ever met, which makes it a bit puzzling why she'd want to surround herself by politicians. But she'll be a breath of fresh air for any deliberative body.

Yay, Cawwie!

Edit: goadingthepen has compiled links to just a few of the thousands of Carrie Jones well-wishers who poured their support into LiveJournal yesterday. It's a grassroots movement!

WOTD: Guide

2008-03-28T19:09:20Z

Today's word of the day is: Guide

If you have a copy of the new Children's Writer Guide to 2008, check out the article by Chris Eboch. I haven't seen it yet myself but I'm told that I'm quoted in the article. Thanks, Chris!

WOTD: Consumer Safety II

2008-03-27T21:58:51Z

It's a bad week for penguin products. If you have a Li'l Penguin Rock 'N Ride Plush Rocker toy, or one of its pony, bull, or dog cousins, get rid of it before it kills your child. At this rate penguin-related recalls will become a regular blog feature.

And another reminder that the Toy Penguin figures from Plan Toy can cause laceration damage if the heads pop off. The Penguins of Doom novels still have not caused any reported injuries.

WOTD: Consumer Safety

2008-03-25T21:53:44Z

Today's word of the day is: Consumer Safety

In the interest of the product-buying public, I want to make sure that people realize that the penguins of doom being recalled today by order of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission are completely unrelated to my Penguins of Doom book.

My Penguins of Doom has never caused anyone a greater injury than a paper cut. The other penguins of doom are wooden penguin-shaped toys with sharp metal points that constitute a federal laceration hazard.

My Penguins of Doom retails for $13.95 at bookstores and online. The other penguins of doom sell for between $15 and $20 at specialty toy stores.

My Penguins of Doom transports the reader to a magical world of danger and adventure. The other penguins of doom transport the user to the nearest emergency room for twenty stitches and a tetanus shot.

My Penguins of Doom should be given to children. The other penguins of doom should be taken away from children and returned to the store of purchase for a full refund--which could then, perhaps, be used to purchase a copy of my Penguins of Doom.

I hope I've sufficiently cleared that up.

Seriously, if you have one of these toys, go to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission page for instructions on how to get your money refunded. You can also subscribe to email alerts so you have the latest information on what toys, clothing, or furnishings have been deemed too dangerous to use. I get several of these alerts every week!

Book Review Theater: Curious George and the Rocket

2008-03-24T17:46:33Z

Curious George and the Rocket
By H. A. Rey
Houghton Mifflin, 2001

Our daughter was two weeks old when we brought her to the library to take out her first board book. She's too young to express a reading preference, but not too young to have a card issued in her own name--hooray! So while I'm no expert on picture books, I'm suddenly in a position to read and review them in my own unique style.

Curious George and the Rocket is a shortened version of the 1957 classic, Curious George Gets a Medal, reduced to board-book size for wee-little baby-children like mine. Lost are classic scenes of George getting himself into mischief with an ink blotter, a mess of soap bubbles, some farm animals, and various museum exhibits. What remains is George's mission training, successful rocket trip into space, safe return by parachute, and subsequently recognized status as the first monkey in space. As a result, George seems uncharacteristically serious in this book and doesn't get into the kind of trouble we might normally expect. In other words, George is all work and no play!

George's space mission is coordinated by a Professor Wiseman, whose academic credentials are never given, under the sponsorship of the Museum of Science, possibly as a publicity stunt although the scientific rationale would have been compelling and significant. There doesn't seem to be an animal behaviorist on staff, unless the Man in the Yellow Hat is being employed as such, which would be a good idea because Professor Wiseman is apparently under the misapprehension that monkeys can read and write.

The book is sparse on details, which is a shame because the scenario presents an excellent opportunity to teach children about the early days of manned (and monkeyed) rocketry. For example, George's bravery and the Man in the Yellow Hat's anxiety could have been highlighted by a brief recap of missions that had gone before...

The first six monkeys loaded into Air Force rockets were all named Albert, and all of them suffered horribly in the name of science. Albert I was launched into the sky in June of 1948, went 39 miles up, and suffocated to death before reaching the edge of space. A year later, Albert II successfully made it into space but died on impact when his rocket crashed back to Earth. Albert III died when his rocket accidentally exploded at an altitude of about 35,000 feet. Albert IV, like Albert II, also died on impact. Albert V died in 1951 when his parachute failed to deploy. Finally, Albert VI actually returned alive from space, but died of his injuries two hours after landing.

In 1952, when somebody finally realized that Albert was a terribly unlucky name for monkey astronauts, a pair of cynomolgus monkeys named Patricia and Mike made it safely up and back--except that they didn't fly quite high enough to actually reach space.

This was the state of monkey rocketry in 1957, when Curious George Gets a Medal was originally published. The visionary author-illustrator team of H. A. Rey and Margaret Rey (here uncredited) apparently imagined that the first successful monkey mission would come from the academic and institutional realm, since the military hadn't had much luck to that point and NASA hadn't yet been founded. Thus enter Professor Wiseman and his backers at the museum.

Professor Wiseman can be lauded for including a video camera on George's flight, allowing the crew to view and track him in real time. He also provides George with a protective space suit that might have saved one or two of the Alberts if it had been in earlier usage. However, some other of Professor Wiseman's mission parameters seem a little sketchy--the use of a launch platform made of flammable-looking wood, the close proximity of the ground crew while the rocket is firing, the seeming lack of sensors to monitor George's vital signs during the trip, the idea to attach a parachute to George rather than to the rocket capsule, and the reliance on George to activate his own escape sequence from the rocket after reentry--but despite the potential for disaster, the trip is an overwhelming success and George ends the book with a shiny gold medal.

It wasn't until 1959 that a real-life monkey matched George's fictional space accomplishment. A rhesus monkey named Mr. Able and a spider monkey named Miss Baker were the first living beings to safely make it into space and back again--although Mr. Able died four days later from a bad reaction to an anesthetic during surgery to remove an infected medical electrode. Miss Baker lived out a very long spider monkey lifetime and is buried on the grounds of the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Had George's trip actually occurred in 1957, he really would have earned that medal, as well as the thanks of a grateful planet. Lessons learned from American space monkeys and Soviet space dogs made it possible for human beings to reach orbital and suborbital space in 1961.

Bottom Line: The newly-shortened version of the book is recommended for its depiction of space travel but does very little to showcase Curious George's famous personality, his trademark penchant for getting himself into and out of trouble, and his carefree attitude toward life. We see nothing of George's curiosity in the pages that remain from the larger work, so the protagonist comes off as regrettably generic. I enjoyed reading this to my daughter because I could go off on tangents about space travel, but I felt apologetic on George's behalf, as if I needed to explain that he really is a fun and clever monkey when he's not all serious and scientific.

<book review theater>

ME (using Man in the Yellow Hat voice): Look, George, you got a letter from Professor Wise Man!

ME (using Professor Wiseman voice): It's pronounced WEISS-man!

ME (using Man in the Yellow Hat voice): Professor Wise Man wants you to fly to space in his rocket!

ME (using Professor Wiseman voice): WEISS-man, WEISS-man, WEISS-man!!!

ME (using Man in the Yellow Hat voice): Professor Wise Man sure is a nice guy, isn't he?

ME (using Professor Wiseman voice): Aaaaaaaargh!!!

</book review theater>

Book Review Theater: Children of the Mind

2008-03-21T16:57:44Z

Children of the Mind
By Orson Scott Card
(Tor Books, 1996)

I know several readers, myself included, who were blown away by Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. They then found the sequel, Speaker for the Dead, to be equally as riveting and eagerly reached for Xenocide, book three in the series, with the highest of expectations--only to be slammed with disappointment. This otherwise serviceable book, with an original premise and interesting characters, crashes to an unsatisfying and confusing ending that combines the worst attributes of deus ex machina and sequel hooking. Back in the mid-90s, it seemed that only the most devoted of Ender fans dared to approach the fourth book, Children of the Mind. The rest of us avoided it like the descolada virus itself.

This situation may have changed over the ensuing decade as Card has published a number of prequel and sequel books in the Ender universe including a notable series about the life and times of Ender Wiggin's schoolmate, Bean. As the story world has expanded, characters have been fleshed out, political systems have been better defined, and the original quadrology has been reframed into a new context. Xenocide-burned readers may finally be ready to take tentative steps toward CotM--or at least that's my theory, after receiving an endorsement of the book from a friend who described it as "not as bad as everyone thought it would have to be."

So I read the book and it was, indeed, not as bad as everyone thought it would have to be--but it's no Ender's Game, either.

It helps to know that Xenocide and CotM were originally conceived as a single volume, which was divided in half when the page count climbed higher than the publisher was willing to accommodate. CotM's confusing and disjointed opening takes place only moments after Xenocide's confusing and disjointed ending, and neither book feels complete on its own. I'm sure the author did the best he could but the result still reads like a botched operation to separate conjoined twins.

CoTM starts in the middle of the action with no easy recap for those of us who haven't read the previous book in a while, so a better transition would have been appreciated. Perhaps something like I've done in this episode of Book Review Theater...

<book review theater>

EXTERIOR - EXTRASOLAR PLANET WITH THREE MOONS IN AN ORANGE SKY, WHERE PEOPLE STROLL ALONG A BOARDWALK THAT SEPARATES A BEACH ON ONE SIDE FROM URBAN BLIGHT ON THE OTHER - LATE EVENING

A cardboard box appears from nowhere. Peter Wiggin and Si Wang-mu emerge, look around in confusion for a moment, and confront the first man passing by.

PETER: Excuse me, sir?

MAN: Yeah? Whatta you want?

PETER: I'm an extra-universally created simulation of Peter Wiggin, the late Hegemon of the Free People of Earth, under the spiritual control of Andrew "Ender" Wiggin who is and will remain, until his imminent death of old age, reviled and celebrated, respectively, as Xenocide and Speaker for the Dead.

WANG-MU: And I am Wang-mu, a former slave with artificially-enhanced intellectual capacity, ironically named after a Chinese goddess. Also ironically, the so-called free people of my society were in fact enslaved to outside powers by virtue of their genetically-crafted OCD tendencies while peasants and slaves like myself remained actually free.

PETER: With the aid of Jane, a unique artificial intelligence originally created by an alien race that's falsely presumed to be extinct at the hands of my apparent younger brother and puppetmaster, we are travelling from Wang-Mu's home world--

WANG-MU: The Planet Where Everyone Is Chinese.

PETER: Right. From Wang-Mu's home world, The Planet Where Everyone is Chinese, we were meant to find The Planet Where Everyone Is A Pacific Islander by way of The Planet Where Everyone is Japanese.

WANG-MU (looks around): With my advanced intellect, I've determined that this is not any of those worlds.

MAN: Nah. This is The Planet Where Everyone Is From New Jersey. Got a problem with that?

PETER: Not at all, my hairy knuckle-dragging friend. It would seem that Jane is playing a practical joke on us, or perhaps manipulating our journey in the same way that everyone around us seems to be constantly manipulating everyone else in some way or other.

WANG-MU: Including ourselves.

PETER: I'm sorry for taking up your time, but we really must be going. A fleet is approaching The Planet Where Everyone is Brazilian with the intention of blowing the whole thing up, not knowing yet that a cure to the dreaded species-scrambling descolada virus has been found, or that their actions would mean genocide for the last remaining Buggers as well as the native Piggies and Jane herself--who is unique enough to be considered her own species. Did I mention that Jane has the ability to pop people in and out of the universe, allowing them to create impossible objects, bring people back from the dead, and cure brain damage or deformities of the body?

WANG-MU: Which is why we must prevent Congress from shutting Jane down by persuading some influential philosophers that the events of World War II back on Earth are still relevant in space so many thousands of years later.

Peter and Wang-mu step back into the cardboard box, which promptly vanishes.

MAN: What a couple of self-important jerks!

</book review theater>

Something like that would have helped a lot, although the premise does seem rather silly and far-fetched when you try to boil it down to a few short paragraphs of exposition. It also reveals a major weakness of the story world: the assumption that Earth would colonize new worlds on a nation-by-nation basis and that the resulting planetary cultures would not change or evolve noticeably from their progenitors. This detail seems glaringly unrealistic in light of Card's obsession with such anthropological details as food, architecture, and language.

Ender himself hardly appears in this book, and perhaps the most memorable character from Xenocide, OCD-laden genius Han Qing-jao, is missing entirely--only represented in CotM by tantalizing excerpts from her philosophical writings, which serve as thematic chapter headers. But Qing-jao's presence would perhaps have been redundant since she is far from the series's only deep-thinking philosopher and author of impactful works that have changed the lives of billions or trillions of people. In addition to Quing-jao, this would include Ender (author of a trilogy that has stayed continuously in print for over three thousand years), Valentine and Peter (who manipulated world governments through their pseudonymous writings as Demosthenes and Locke), Aimaina Hikari (whose works inspired attempted xenocide), Grace (whose writings inspired Hikari), Malu (whose works inspired Grace), and Plikt (who, as the speaker for Ender's death, has a lock on a future bestseller as well).

Only Ender's stepdaughter, Quara, seems to lack the bug for philosophizing and authorship, so of course the other characters use her as a punching bag for their verbal abuse--which highlights another annoyance I experienced with this book. Every scene is either a dramafest of angst and confrontation or an excuse for long philosophical soliloquies that usually include at least one Shakespeare quotation. Or often, both. Almost without exception, every philosophical theory presented in the book is then subsequently picked apart and discarded as childish and simplistic compared to the unexpressed deeper thoughts that all of our genius characters are keeping to themselves. This makes for one long, emotionally draining, and often pompous book.

Bottom Line: Every reader of thought-provoking science fiction, age 10 through 110, should pick up copies of Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. My prior warning to avoid Xenocide is tempered somewhat, but anyone who continues onward in the series should read Xenocide and Children of the Mind together and be prepared for an exhausting and confusing ride.

WOTD: Eco-Libris

2008-03-19T01:43:32Z

Today's word of the day is: Eco-Libris

Books are made of paper, which comes from trees, so why not plant new trees to offset the environmental impact of the books you buy? This greening of books is the idea behind the Eco-Libris website. True, it doesn't offset the energy and water resources required to produce the paper pulp and transport the finished product to the store, but it's very cool to slap on a sticker that says, "A tree was planted for this book." And yes, the stickers are printed on recycled paper using non-toxic inks.

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read

WOTD: Gygax

2008-03-07T15:44:50Z

Today's word of the day is: Gygax

Gygax: n. 1. A great name for a half-elven 30th level Figher/Mage with psionic powers, don't you think?

I've been thinking more about the recent death of Gary Gygax and why it struck me so profoundly.

When an actor dies, we remember some of the roles he or she brought to life and the special place those movies or TV shows may have had in our lives -- like when Fred Rogers passed away, everybody had to acknowledge the impact his show had on an entire generation of children who learned that "everyone is special" because Mr. Rogers "likes you just the way you are."

When an author or screenwriter dies, we remember a person who created entire worlds, stables of characters, and plots. For many people, the death of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry was especially impactful because Roddenberry created a much-beloved story universe, its major characters, and many of its most memorable plots--plus he saturated the entire series with his own personal optimism for the future of humanity.

Gary Gygax wasn't known for bringing a character to life or for creating a story world, at least not primarily. He was a meta-creator. He made the rules that allowed other people to bring their own characters to life and set their own stories into motion. Gygax's greatest contribution was the development and promotion of a creativity platform that allowed ordinary people to establish a setting, populate it with monsters, put together a workable plot, and breathe life into bold adventurers, mysterious wizards, cunning thieves, and pious clerics. The system that Gygax made was easy enough for fifth graders to follow but complex enough to appeal to M.I.T. graduate students.

So while there are many actors and authors in the world, we don't very often have a chance to mourn the loss of a person who is the heart and soul behind an entirely new form of media, "role-playing games," which are interactive and social in a way that books, television, or movies never could be.

WOTD: Stuff

2008-03-05T22:23:51Z

Today's Word of the Day is: Stuff

Stuff: n. 1. Collective term for a bunch of random things that have no connection with each other; 2. Mysterious substance in the middle of an Oreo cookie.

Firstly, happy belated birthday and bookday to carriejones!

Secondly, reaction is warranted to the untimely death of role-playing game legend Gary Gygax. Although it's been a long time since I've had cause to roll the old 20-sided dice, I still have the AD&D hardcover books in a place of honor on my bookshelf and a fondness in my heart for countless hours of my youth spent trolling graph-paper dungeons, looking for hidden doors, and slaying monsters for their gold and experience points. My friend, Eric Burns, has a more detailed remembrance that puts the life of Mr. Gygax into proper context:

For all his contradictions, for all his faults, for all his strengths and for all his weaknesses, this complicated, opinionated, genius man has had an impact on society as a whole that is literally immeasurable. I'm not misusing the word 'literally' there, either -- there is no way to measure how much influence Gary Gygax has had on the world. Certainly, the world of literature, of movies, of video games, of television (children's and adult) have all been profoundly affected by the things Gary Gygax did. Billions of dollars have changed hands based directly or indirectly on Gary Gygax's work. Take Gary Gygax out of the equation, and our entire culture becomes radically different. And Christ only knows what the internet culture would look like.
But beyond that, a man who was a monumental part of my childhood, my past, and a huge number of my friendships is gone. I listed out that long list of friends above -- but understand that's a tiny fraction of my friends from roleplaying. And a large number of my other friends are ones I haven't gamed with but who are themselves gamers. Gary Gygax gave me a social group. He gave me peers.
And he regarded me as a peer, all too briefly.
And I'm going to miss him. Terribly.

Thirdly, Baby Alexi turns three weeks old tomorrow and I've decided that she's not borrowing the car. I base this on a set of observations and the following imagined scenario...

Borrowing the family car is one thing teenagers have been doing for decades and that's not likely to change between now and the time when Baby Alexi becomes Teen Alexi and gets her license. It may be a hybrid car, or a flying car, or a car that costs $20 per gallon to fill up, but we're likely to have one and she's just as likely to want it.

My wife and I already know that Baby Alexi likes mirrors, and most cars have at least three that she could look at herself in--four if you count the one that folds down from the passenger-side sun visor. She'd also want to clip her toy frog onto the rearview mirror and crank up the instrumental lullabies on the car stereo. Then, although her pediatrician says she should be eating every three to four hours, we've found that Baby Alexi can sometimes start crying for food after two hours or even after one--which means that even if Teen Alexi eats before leaving the house, she'll almost immediately need to make a pit stop into a drive-in to feed her hunger.

Now you can see how I imagine what Teen Alexi will be like behind the wheel--burger in one hand, bottle of milk in the other, checking herself in the mirror, playing with her stuffed frog, listening to instrumental lullabies, crying because she needs a diaper change--all instead of paying attention to the road... Oh! And did I mention that car rides put her right to sleep? Baby Alexi hasn't yet managed to stay away for five minutes while strapped into her car seat, so factor that in and things look very dangerous indeed for letting Teen Alexi borrow the car in 17 years or so.

We'll try to say no to Teen Alexi for her own good, but somehow I don't think it will work. We already have trouble saying no to her when she cries, and she's got such a set of lungs on her!

Guest Blogger: Alexi Fishbone, 6 Days Old

2008-02-20T19:25:18Z

Greg has been too busy for blogging or email this week, so today's guest blogger is Alexi Fishbone, born February 14, 2008. She is happy to be here and wants to congratulate Stephanie Hale for winning the baby birthdate pool.

Alexi says:

Until last Thursday, I thought I had a pretty good idea about the nature of the world and my role in it. The universe, as I'd come to know it, was a sack of warm fluid in which a person could safely float upside-down while contemplating the wonders of existence and occasionally sucking on a thumb or a few fingers. A total universal population of one--that is, just myself--had remained constant since the beginning of time, some 40 weeks before. The universe was a comfortable place to live, although sometimes I felt as if the walls were closing in, since I distinctly remembered having more room to move around during my youth as a humble blastosphere.

Then, suddenly and without warning, I was evicted from the only world I'd ever known and found myself living in a universe that was much larger, grander, more complex, and heavily populated with various tribes of nurses, doctors, lactation consultants, and others.

This new universe boasted two distinct worlds connected by a complex network of doors and hallways. The first world was Planet Nursery where other newborns slept, bathed, and had something called "vitals" taken from them on a regular basis. The second world was called Room 567 and was home to Mommy, a being who was the source of all nourishment and love in the universe, as well as her personal assistant, Daddy. I could tell that Mommy was in charge because her throne was a huge mechanical bed with many electrical controls while Daddy slept on a fold-out cot and complained of steel coils digging into his back. As I wasn't native to either of the two worlds in this universe, I travelled between them in a one-nursepower vehicle I nicknamed The Bassinetmobile.

But five days later, just as I was getting used to this wondrous new universe, my world expanded yet again! It turns out that I had been living in one universe of many--or at least one universe of two that I've seen so far. In addition to her temporary vacation world in the universe called Hospital, Mommy also reigns over a universe called Home, where she graciously invited me to move in with her. Upon arrival, I was given my very own furniture, toys, and so many colorful outfits that there's always a new one to change into after I've finished pooping, peeing, or spitting up on the one I'd previously been wearing.

The universe of Home has no nurses or doctors, but it does have furry creatures called cats who are hundreds of weeks old and at least a couple times bigger than I am--and I was pleased to discover that Mommy lets Daddy live in her universe as well! He and Mommy spend a lot of time feeding me, playing with me, and watching over me while I sleep. I haven't fully decided, but I think I'll keep them around for a while.

I'm told that there are more worlds and universes out there than I could ever imagine, and I'd never see them all even if I lived to be a thousand weeks old or more! Even Daddy, ancient as he is, says that his universe became bigger, brighter, and more special than ever on the day I came into it, so maybe he knows a little bit about how I feel.

Leave me lots of comments, please!!!

Much love, Alexi Fishbone.

Book Review Theater: A String in the Harp

2008-02-13T21:10:48Z

A String in the Harp

By Nancy Bond

(Margaret K. McElderry, 1976)

I read this 1977 Newbery Honor Book shortly after Enchantress from the Stars and found myself wondering why the Newbery Committees hate mothers so much. Surely anybody's who's looked into the "dead mother book" phenomenon can attest to the fact that the mothers of Newbery book protagonists have an amazingly short life expectancy and a high tendency to die even before the first chapter starts. Likewise the stars of most Disney animated films and every fairytale character with an evil stepmother. My current pet theory is that a motherless main characters tend to be instantly sympathetic, are forced to be more self-reliant, and don't have as much of a support network to fall back on when things go bad--which kicks the story up a notch but still, it's a tough sacrifice on the part of all those fictional mothers.

In ASitH, Jen Morgan is not only motherless, but recently so, and members of her family are still coping with Mom's loss. At the same time, Jen's father probably isn't making things any better by moving the family from Massachusetts to the Welsh countryside, away from their friends and familiar surroundings, and then distancing himself from the children by burying himself in his work. When Jen's younger brother, Peter, starts spacing out and talking about a magical Sixth Century harp key, Jen has to believe it's an act in order to earn a ticket back home. This is the promising premise to a fantasy novel that mostly fails to deliver.

Slogging through this travelogue of a book, I learned much about the climate, culture, history, and ornithology of Wales--yes, there are frequent bird-watching expeditions. Family drama frequently weaves in and out, Jen learns how to cook and clean house, and every once in a while the fantasy elements reassert themselves.

Bang! A magical artifact is found! Zam! Strange things begin to happen! Kapow! Our modern world is bumping up against Wales of the past! We can expect an exciting collision of worlds any time now... any time now... any time now... Or not. The end?!!

ASitH is the rare time travel story in which characters from the present and characters from the past move around the timeline but never actually interact. If this book were a movie, I'd demand a refund. But since it's a book, I'll just do another Book Review Theather!

<book review theater>

INTERIOR - DRAFTY OLD WELSH HOUSE DURING A BAD STORM AT NIGHT, CIRCA 1976

Professor David Morgan stands in the doorway, looking out at the bog.

DAVID: Say, it's sure a bad storm. What do you suppose all those people are doing out on the bog?

JEN: Probably looking for a lost cow.

DAVID: With torches and swords?

JEN: Those cows can be deadly if they sneak up on you. It certainly has nothing to do with magical time-altering harp keys.

Jen looks over at her brother Peter, who is staring intently into the glowing metal harp key he has taken to wearing around his neck.

DAVID (peers harder into the gloom): Maybe it's a festival, like a Welsh version of Guy Fawkes Day or the Fourth of July.

A Sixth Century Welsh warrior stumbles toward the house, wearing armor, bleeding profusely from a battleaxe stuck into his back.

WARRIOR (pleadingly): [Something we can't understand because it's in Welsh.]

DAVID: How exciting! Their festival incorporates costumes and trick-or-treating like Halloween! Jen, run and fetch us some chocolate bars!

</book review theater>

In this case, Book Review Theater is only a slight exaggeration. During the book, an entire Sixth Century battlefield is magically transported to the Twentieth Century complete with hundreds of corpses and rivers of blood and people barely take notice. Sure, television has made us jaded about violence, but come on!

Bottom Line: If you're looking for a fun time travel story that perhaps features a living, breathing mother, this is not the book for you. But I would recommend it to anyone who needs to write a report on Wales in the 1970s, keeping in mind that things have surely changed a lot in the past three-plus decades. "Torchwood", a BBC series I particularly like, is set in modern 21st Century Wales and you'd hardly know it's the same place!