This post is mostly about things I’ve read/am reading, but I have a few administrative issues to get out of the way first.

I’m still up in the air about the new name or tagline for tychoish. I learned that I was misremembering the “early days of a better nation quote,” which make it difficult to serve as a new blog title. “Work as if you were living--” is kinda dumb, even if you modify it to “think” or “write.” And I think “innovated, bordering on the avate garde,” is perhaps a smidge to close to pornography for my tastes. Regarding the use of the pen name/pseudonym, I realized in a comment exchange on LiveJournal1 that the reason I was a bit angsty about this is that knitting is something that I already do “as [given name],” and because of this and because there is--as far as I know--not a huge precedent of knitters using pen names I got bit tetchy about it. Now that I’ve realized these things I feel fine about the situation.

But anyway, that said…

Back to reading:

In a fit of insomnia, I finished reading Samuel Delany’s “Empire Star,” the novella that’s related to Babel-17, that I read last year (Bable-17 is the closest thing there is to the “Science Fiction of Lingustics” and is quite amazing2). I’ve seen this novella anthologized a number of times in “new space opera” and “SF classics” collections, and it’s absolutely amazing.

The plot is very complex and circularly, and perfectly simple all at the same time. The use of the narrator is risky as hell from my perspective, but it works perfectly. It’s also, not surprisingly, an incredibly self-aware text. It predicts when the story is going to become interesting and turn, it’s self-referential, and the responses to “Empire Star” in Babel-17 are perfect.

Good stuff.

I’m not sure what my next novel to read is going to be. I have Delany’s Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand on the shelf, and I’d like to read that at some point, but I think giving my brain a while to rest might be good. I’m also considering reading Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man, because I write telepath stories, am interested/entertained by procedurals, and because I haven’t, but I don’t know how that’s going to go over.

I also got the Left-Hand of Darkness, which I’ve always wanted to read (and even started a few times,) but something always manages to come up, so maybe I should dive in to this.

I feel somewhat guilty by the fact that I’m not really getting into the Tiptree (The Stary Rift,) but I think it’s no use to guilt myself into what is ostensibly pleasure reading.

I’m also beginning to listen to James Patrick Kelly’s reading of Look into The Sun,3 on his podcast “Free Reads"4, which proves to be interesting and fun. It’s nice to knit while listening to podcasts, and I’ve been behind on my knitting of late.

Anyway, that’s all I have on that. I’ll be in touch.

Onward and Upward!

  1. I (automatically) cross-post the content of this blog to a similarly titled live journal, and the comments over there are open, so sometimes discussions pop up over there. This is perhaps not ideal from the reader’s perspective, but I have opted to encourage more commenting at the possible risk of fragmenting a discussion. ↩︎

  2. Actually, now that I think about it, Janet Kagen’s original series Star Trek novel “Uhura’s Song” is also, kind of, lingustic SF. Uhura’s Song is, I’d argue, the best piece of liscenced science fiction ever, and of at least minor importance to the field feminist science fiction. ↩︎

  3. Which, is linked, thanks to my sleep deprived mind, to the title of a morris tune called “Jump at the Sun.” Sigh. ↩︎

  4. Given the above connection to the morris tune, you’ll, I’m sure, be pleased to know that I did not almost type “Free Reeds,” though I am forced to wonder how many accordion podcasts there are in the world. ↩︎