[  Mood: Sick ]
[  Currently: Watching Colbert Report ]
Read through this while waiting for a medical appointment. Nice follow up to the first book. Once again, lovely illustrations and a story that moves along quickly.

This time the siblings are battling goblins who are stealing animals for their teeth. Yes, their teeth. Apparently they aren’t born with any teeth so they use bits of glass, stone and the teeth of animals to build dentures. Tell grandma to hide the dentures!

When brother Simon goes looking for his missing kitty (Not the kitty, you goblin bastards!), he is taken by the goblins So Jared and Mallory go looking for him. And hilarity ensues.

Spoiler alert: They don’t find the cat, but they do rescue a kitten.

[ Mood: Shocked ]
On his blog, Jeff Vandermeer released a rough of the cover to his (co-edited with his wife Ann) forthcoming anthology Steampunk. Contributors include Michael Moorcock, Joe R. Lansdale, Neal Stephenson, Michael Chabon, Mary Gentle, and others. Actually one of the others happens to me. I’ve contributed an essay about pop culture and steampunk.

Table of contents:

“Preface,” Jeff and Ann VanderMeer

“Introduction: The Nineteenth Century Roots of Steampunk,” Jess Nevins

“Steampunk in Pop Culture,” Rick Klaw

“Steampunk in the Comics,” Bill Baker

“Benediction: Warlord of the Air” excerpt, Michael Moorcock

“Lord Kelvin’s Machine,” James Blaylock

“The Giving Mouth,” Ian MacLeod

“A Sun in the Attic,” Mary Gentle

“The God-Clown Is Near,” Jay Lake

“The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down,” Joe Lansdale

“The Selene Gardening Society,” Molly Brown

“Seventy-Two Letters,” Ted Chiang

“The Martian Agent: An Interplanetary Romance,” Michael Chabon

“Victoria,” Paul Di Filippo

“Reflected Light,” Rachel E. Pollack

“Minutes of the Last Meeting,” Stepan Chapman

“Excerpt from the Third and Last Volume of the Tribes of the Pacific Coast,” Neal Stephenson

I’m jazzed about this book. Especially after seeing the cover and the people that are in the anthology. The piece I most look forward to is Jess Nevin’s “The Nineteenth Century Roots of Steampunk.” For the uninitiated, Jess produced the two amazing League of Extraordinary Gentleman companions (Heroes and Monsters and A Blazing World) plus the incredible The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana. Needless to say, Jess knows his stuff.

Look for the book in May, 2008.

Steampunk: The Anthology was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

[  Mood: Scared ]
[  Currently: Eating Breakfast – Organic Shreddies type cereal with a banana ]
So I was skimming through the coupon envelop that arrives at my door on a fairly regular basis when I came across an ad for a fine Thomas Kinkade Clock

Okay, maybe fine is pushing it. This thing is fugly. I know it appeals to the same people who would buy the Pillsbury Doughboy Clock

But I have to ask myself, "Why is Grandma spending your inheritance on pieces of crap?"

I also had to ask myself if there was a special level of hell reserved for Mr. Kinkade and his fellow tchotchke creators? And how many of his children’s souls did Mr. Kinkade sell for his fame? Cause you know that most of those pieces of highly decorated plastic and cheap metals are going to end up in a dump somewhere once grandma goes to the home.

I look at the stuff and think, it’s pretty, in a schmaltzy Touched by an Angel kind of way, but would I pay $179.99 (Plus $19.99 in S&H) in four easy installments of $44.99 for it.

The answer to that my friends is no.

[  Mood: Sick ]
[  Currently: Watching Canada’s Next Top Model -Cycle 1 ]
Just finished the second book of the Circle Opens trilogy. Once again, Tamora Pierce has done a great job with the pacing and story of this book.

Briar, the plant mage, is now fourteen and on an educational tour with his mentor, Rosethorn. They stop in Chammur, where Briar discovers Evvy, a street urchin who is a stone mage. Briar must try to find her a teacher or be faced with teaching her himself.

Fun read.

[  Mood: Happy ]
[ Currently: Writing My Blog – No, I am not multi-tasking this one time! ]
Just finished the first book in Tamora Pierce’s The Legend of Beka Cooper this morning, and I really want to know why Pierce is not a better known children’s author.

Publisher’s may be touting other authors as the "Next Rowling", but this woman is it. She has created a complex world, with strong protagonists, and like Rowling, Pierce doesn’t shy away from the darker side of life.

Terrier tells the story of Beka Cooper, a new recruit for the Provost’s Marshals in the capital city of Tortall. The Marshals are the police of the city. Beka has been assigned to the Lower City, the poorest and roughest of the city’s districts.

And this is where Pierce’s world building shines. She pulls no punches about Beka’s chosen profession. The merchants and thieves bribe the Dogs every week. It’s how business is done. There are corrupt dogs who look the other way, others who are drunk on duty and others who die. Still, there are those who take the job seriously and do their best.

And once again, Pierce has created a strong, confident heroine who is addled by the presence of boys. I like that in a girl. In addition, Beka possesses a small magic of being able to speak to spirits. Some of them are spirits of the dead who cling to pigeons. Others are spirits that create dust spinners in corners of streets, collecting the sounds of humanity that passes by them.

I am revising my first comment, why isn’t this woman better known as an author PERIOD. This is some of the better fiction I have read in a long time. The last 250 pages of this book kept me up late and delayed my breakfast.

Go get this book and read it. You won’t be disappointed.

[  Mood: Happy ]
[  Currently: Listening to CBC Radio One ]
Have I mentioned how much I love the library?

Yesterday I picked up four books I had ordered. A Jim Butcher and three Tamora Pierce. Yeah!

I go into that place so much that my husband equates going to the local library with me like going to Cheers with Norm. They all know me and greet me.

Now all I need is a freak snow storm so I can stay home for a few days to read.

[  Mood: Happy ]
[  Currently: Watching Kitchen Nightmares ]
Finished the Justice League Omnibus and I have one final observation, Deus Ex Machina was a big thing in the sixties.

Every single story in the book has the League defeated and under the control of some nefarious villain, until one of the League suddenly reveals that they knew what was going on all along and was only faking it.

No, really. That’s what happened. "I was just pretending to be under his spell. Once he left the room, I released the rest of the League." In pretty much every single story.

How about just not pretending and taking out the bad guy?

I know, not as tension filled, but eminently more believable.

Were kids that dumb in the early 60s?

[  Mood: Silly ]
[  Currently: Listening to CBC Radio One ]
So there is a new trend in Ottawa.

The school lockdown.

In the last few weeks there have been three sets of prank calls to 911 in my city claiming that there is a gunman in the schools. This means that the school, and any schools that are close by, go into lockdown.

What is that you ask?

Well it’s where students are herded into the nearest classroom, have to sit on the floor, away from the door and stay quiet.

Isn’t it fun living in a post Columbine world?

But lest you think this is just all good teenage fun, let me explain a bit more. ‘Cause my school was one of the ones that got locked down.

I was outside doing first aid when it happened. My students were waiting for me in another part of the yard for their Daily Physical activity when this happened. They were being supervised by another teacher who did not know there was a lockdown.

I had to thrust the child I was working with into the school and beetled over to the door nearest to where my students were. With me screaming at them to move, they bolted to the school. Once in the classroom, I now faced the reality of keeping 30 kids calm and quiet for 90 minutes. One of my students was so scared, if she could have melting into the wall, she would have.

But I didn’t have the worst of it. The primary classes are full of little kids who had to go pee. After 30 minutes, the teachers had them peeing in the garbage. Imagine being in a room when that’s happening. When my grade 8s said they had to go pee, I told them no. One said "Am I supposed to piss my pants?" My answer, "Pretty much."

This kind of stuff is stupid and its dangerous. After a prank like that, are students and teachers going to take the next one seriously? One High School has been locked down three times in a month because of this stuff. What happens if the next one is real? Will those students and teachers be quick enough and quiet enough to survive? Will the cops be as vigilant in responding?

The fact that the idiot or idiots that are doing this are stupid is obvious. I hope that they are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. In addition, I want them to be left alone in a room with all the primaries who had to pee in garbage cans as a consequence. They’d teach them a lesson they would not forget.

[  Mood: Happy ]
[  Currently: Eating Breakfast – Toast and a nice cup of Cashmiri Chai Tea ]
So I was still curled up with my JLA omnibus last night, and I had this reaction.

Why does Snapper Carr exist?

Oh sure, the creators thought we kids needed someone to relate to, because we couldn’t relate to superpowered people, but come on? Did he have to be so annoying? The same holds true for Wendy and Marvin, and Zan and Jayna. A-Noy-Ing.

And then I question why comic book writers of the period thought we needed someone to identify with that wasn’t one of the heroes. I indentified with Black Canary when I was six. Six! I thought it was cool that there was a blond who kicked butt. (Only later did I realize what fishnets were and the whole Green Arrow thing.)

Further more, that was the point of comics. These were superheroes. And I could imagine being them or like them. Gifted with some extraordinary power. Fighting bad guys. Saving the world. Looking good in spandex, or polyester, the 1970s equivalent.

Did they really think we were that dumb that we needed some second rate looser as an entry point to the adventure?

The point is Snapper, with his incessant snapping and wacky beatnik speak just detracts from the story some 50 years away. And how he keeps saving the day is terribly annoying. Is Superman really that weak a hero that he needs a teenager to come riding to the rescue? I know Aquaman is, but that’s what Green Lantern is for.

Come on Dr. Light, just kill him and be done with it.

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
[  Currently: Eating Breakfast – Toast and a nice cup of Formosa Silver Moon Tea ]
So last night I curled up with an omnibus of Justice League Comics from the 1960s. (Who knew Aquaman could look even dorkier than the 80s Manwave?)

At one point the League gathered in the "modernistically" decorated headquarters.

I wondered if it was a word. My spell check tells me no. Dictionary.com tells me that it is the adverb form of "modernistic", which is itself an adjective. The meaning of said adjective? 1. modern; 2. of or pertaining to modernism or modernists.

Who says comics rot your brain?

Of course, the snarky part of me thinks modern or one of its derivatives would have worked fine. But what do I know?