Neil Gaiman’s Instructions book trailer

I can never get enough of Neil Gaiman. The man is a genre unto himself, and everything that he touches seems to turn to gold.

Even his poorer outings (like American Gods) tend to be pretty good, while his best efforts are remarkable. Few authors manage to deliver such profound work in such an understated fashion. If you don’t believe me then just pick up a copy of The Dreamhunters or Murder Mysteries and decide for yourself.

Smoke and Mirrors - The anthology containing 'Instructions'

One of his more memorable pieces is to be found in his Smoke and Mirrors anthology. Instructions is a poem that acts as a guide on how to survive a fairy tale. Now Gaiman has teamed up with celebrated fantasy artist, Charles Vess, to convert the poem into an illustrated book. Here’s the amazing trailer:

Legend of the Seeker

When I was done reading Eddings, Fesit, Weis & Hickman and the other staple fantasy authors of the geek teenage years, I was introduced by a friend to Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series. Starting with Wizard’s First Rule, it provided me with a glimpse into a darker and more brutal type of fantasy than I had been exposed to before.

Here the predestined heroes weren’t in puberty, fighting awkward romantic moments as intensely as they did the nefarious enemy. And when one finished the first book, one didn’t put it down with spirits soaring, captivated by a tale of heroic adventure and daring where personal tragedies and setbacks were little more than glorified MacGuffins.

**Minor spoilers follow**

Instead, I cringed throughout the book. Scenes that lingered weren’t glorious images of a hero standing with robes billowing behind him in the wind as his righteous might unleashed justice on his enemies. Rather, I couldn’t forget the horrific murder of a young boy or the (exquisitely written) protracted torture scene of the main character that was somehow unnervingly alluring (don’t call the cops on me just yet – it was designed to be as such and is key to the plot; or at least to my interpretation of it).

**Spoilers finished**

Peaking with the second book, Stone of Tears, the series left me captivated for the first few novels and I persisted until the fifth, Soul of the Fire, where a scene with a killer chicken framed by scary lightning put paid to any lingering faith that I may have had in Mr Goodkind. Somewhere along the line he lost the plot and began designing escapades and characters only to churn out more and more instalments in the series. I never read further than that fateful passage, and I am glad that I didn’t spend any more time on what in retrospect was a non-exceptional piece of work.

I found the main characters to be bland, with very stale characteristics. However, Goodkind’s prowess as an author cannot be denied as some of his supporting characters proved to be quite brilliant – especially the eccentric cloud-reading wizard, Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander.

Having since read George R. R. Martin and Steven Erikson’s works, I now struggle to enjoy any other heroic fantasy (with the possible exception of Robin Hobb). Maybe I am being too harsh on Goodkind as he was the last genre author I read before picking up the works of those two maestros.

Regardless, he has a special place on my book-shelf as he proved to be a stepping stone to better authors and kept me thoroughly entertained throughout a few thousand pages. Nevertheless, I was perplexed and a little intrigued when I came across a trailer for Legend of the Seeker, a TV series based on The Sword of Truth.

Having watched the first few episodes I am, surprisingly, somewhat enjoying it. It lacks the darkness and foreboding of the books (which were their biggest assets) and it cuts some corners with key scenes and special effects – but at the same time it does transport one to a world of fantasy where the chicks wear tight red leather and the actors aren’t as annoying as one may have feared.

It’s proving to be rather harmless fun and my snobbish eyes don’t find themselves very offended, least of all by the luscious forest wench that is Bridget Regan.

Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot

The following is a reading by Carl Sagan from his book Pale Blue Dot (which takes its name from the famous Voyager photo).

In it, Sagan takes a look at our own existence on this planet while offering a wealth of perspective:

On my shelf

When I’m not hanging out with Armenian cage fighters and shooting up on A-grade heroin in Plaistow, my seldom seen but famously appreciated refinement tends to emerge. Admittedly, you’ll never find me sipping on a Johnnie Walker Blue while reading 100 Years of Solitude but that’s as much due to paucity as it is a reflection on my tastes and inclinations.

However, I do have drinking and reading lists lined up for the next month or so that I thought I would share with you. I debated dropping the former for fear of losing any street-cred or respect that I might have garnered so far, but I thought that the latter may prove to be a more useful reflection on my current interests.

On my shelf for the next month:

• Killing Rommel - Steven Pressfield
• A Quantum Murder – Peter F. Hamilton
• Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts
• For a Pagan Song: In the Footsteps of the Man Who Would be King – Jonny Bealby

Honestly, as entertaining as that list is, the chances of me getting through it within the next month are likely next to zero. Within a few weeks I will be in Cape Town visiting friends and family and I intend to get quite stuck into the other list. Sadly, as I’ve found out recently, I don’t so much suffer from hangovers anymore as I do decompose for prolonged periods of misery.

Whether it’s a sign of my advancing age or of my decreased drinking habits (thanks in no small part to the UK’s astronomical booze prices), the fact remains that a good night out these days is likely to reduce me to a physical and emotional wreck with all of the charisma and mental capacity of a damp squid.

Me. The morning after.

Knowing some of those with whom I’ll be spending time in Cape Town (namely the German and the Barman), I’m likely to resemble little more than a drooling lump of compost by the time I make my return to the Grey Smog.

Luckily, both of the above-mentioned individuals have some decent / effective taste in drinks. The former works at a brewery. The latter practically is a brewery. Between them I feel that my pallet, if not my health, will be in good hands.

Unfortunately there are other individuals in the land of sun who are likely to insist that a taxi violence (a nasty South African version of the Irish car bomb) is the only drink for the / any occasion. Including breakfast.

Given that I have lost about 7kg in the seven months that I have been in London, and have drunk as much in those seven months as I used to drink in a week, I am debating whether the enjoyment of boozing it up in Pirates’ at 4am every second day is worth my life.

I am seriously considering the merits of making a stealth visit to Cape Town. What I currently envision is a single day of drinking (most likely Christmas), followed by a week of trying to forget what random memories I have left and striving to feel vaguely human again.

During this time perhaps I’ll read a Cormac McCarthy book to cheer myself up and give me hope of climbing up from the dank, rock bottom, demon-infested pits of despair that are the inevitable follow-up to any night of decent drinking.

Fuck me but I hate hangovers.

A light-hearted joke

Question: “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

Answer by Hemingway: “To die. In the rain.”

I’m reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. With every passing page the vial of painkillers seems to roll closer to the vodka.

The Stars My Destination

Following in somewhat a similar vein from my last post, I decided to pick up a book that has been on my to-do list for a very long time: Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination (or Tiger! Tiger! as it was known under its original title).

It is firmly positioned within the science-fiction community as one of the leading books in its genre. If you were to believe every review that you were to come across, Dune would be the quintessential reader’s book while The Stars My Destination would take the place of the book that all of the genre’s authors look up to.

You generally know that when you pick up one of these 300 page long ‘masterpieces’  that you’re not signing up for the typical dramatic adventure. Rather, the focus steers away from the drama and remains on a message or theme. Often this is associated with a cost to gratuity, where a few extra pages could provide some fast-food fan-service.

Bester however, steers well clear of this, and while perhaps this limits his audience away from the casual Star Wars reader who might be hoping for more details into the space battles, it does allow him to deliver his message without diluting any of its substance.

Gully Foyle, the protagonist and driving force behind the story, is not a nice guy. He’s a brute with a barbaric mind, who rapes when he can, speaks in a gutter based language that hardly makes any sense and abandons any seemingly meaninful bonds that he develops (this last strips away any sort of redeeming qualities the reader would normally assign to him).

Not a nice guy

Ultimately this is the story of a cipher and of unfulfilled potential, both of Foyle and of the human race as a whole. The message is a simple one, but one that so many people still don’t understand; it’s delivery and revelation however, are purely phenomenal. (It is worthwhile noting that the most common comparison is drawn with Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo.)

Grealty accredited with inspiring the cyberpunk genre 30 years before it rose to prominence, the book is both a simple (if not pleasant) read and an incredibly rewarding one.

As Neil Gaiman says in his poigniant introduction, ‘Nothing dates harder or faster than the future.’ The fact that Bester’s 50 year-old vision of the future still provides the same relevant context and perspective that it once did is a testament both to his skill as a writer and to the message that he seeks to deliver through his execution.

Messages like these (providing an outside context problem that forces the reader to reevaluate his own position) are what the genres of science-fiction and fantasy are all about. Far too often this gets lost when authors focus on delivering as much gratuity as possible and neglect the genre’s one clear advantage over all others.

Bester’s book is worth the read simply to see the genre (and I refer to both fantasy and soft science-fiction here) in its purest form. The fact that it is delivered by a brilliant author who is at the top of his game is just the excuse that you need to pick it up.