Unquiet Desperation

(originally published on The Secret Community)

I’ll fess up to it. I’ve been meaning to read some Robert E. Howard for a long time, but it wasn’t until I saw the trailer for the new Solomon Kane movie that I took the plunge and picked up a copy of the most recent collection of Howard’s stories about the sword-slinging puritan.

It was surprisingly readable. The fiction holds up over time, even better than some of Howard’s contemporaries.  The language is crisp and descriptive without filling in every last detail; Howard is a master at leaving enough room for the reader’s imagination to fill in the details. For me, that makes for an intensely visual experience, as the story will play out like a movie in my mind.

At first, it was tough to get used to the lack of continuity. We are so used to reading novels these days that some readers might be frustrated by the nature of these stories. They were all written as serials; short stories for magazines of the time, so concepts like character development are lacking. However, the stories themselves are engrossing, and Howard managed to surprise me more than once with the way he ended some of his tales.

Fans of Stephen King’s Gunslinger will find Kane familiar…there’s more than a little Kane in Roland. Similarly, if you grew up reading science fiction of the sixties as I did, you’ll find Kane an ancestor to many characters. For me, that heightened my appreciation for the stories.

All in all, it was good read, and I recommend it.

Truth be told, we probably could have returned to The Secret Library sooner, but I’ve been avoiding it. Why? Two words: late fees. See, a couple of months ago I checked out a copy of Getting Things Done by David Allen and promptly set fire to it. No book will mock my character flaws in such a manner, do you understand? I will not be mocked!

As it turns out, our android librarian is equipped with neither a sense of irony nor any compulsion toward forgiveness. Nor the slightest inclination to waive a replacement fee, for that matter. However, the whole unpleasant mess has been resolved and we are now prepared to discuss Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore.

Also in this episode:

• Chief Medical Officer’s Progress Report #2: The Bad Doctor returns to blame yet another new strain of yet another virus on our meddling—we prefer “fiddling”, really—with equine-primate hybridization. As a side note, bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees) really are very cute; it should have worked, dammit!
• From the Ministry of Crackpot Schemes and Unfortunate Synergies: Jay is in Hong Kong attempting to procure a wolf-child, but important details seem to have been lost in translation somewhere.

Lair Keeping

• Our theme music is “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton.
• Our Secretary of Artistic Propaganda is Natalie Metzger.
• Our Minister of Crackpot Schemes and Unfortunate Synergies is Jay “The Kingfish” Lynn.
• Our Chief Medical Officer is Dr. John Cmar.
• Our Airborne Legions are led by Commandante David Moore.
• Our Minister of Suspicious Substitutions and Unreasonable Facimiles often operates under the pseudonym The Cynical Optimist.
• Our Minister of Secrets and Subterfuge is classified.

Listen and learn more at The Secret Lair!

My copy of Personal Effects: Dark Art just arrived. J.C. told me a lot of supporting material and clues came with it…WOW.

This will keep me busy for a while…cannot wait to get started.

SPOILERS AHEAD

If you wanted answers, prepare to get them, but they will be wholly unsatisfying.  The fact that the writers used “God did it.” as the wrap-up pissed me off so much that it colored the rest for the series. I was going to buy the series because it was so strong, but at the end, the writing staff TOTALLY blew it. Completely. Angels? Really?

And WTF was Head Baltar alluding to when he said of God, “He doesn’t like to be called that.” Was this supposed to be clever? And WHAT WAS STARBUCK??? It just pissed me off.

For a while, I was truly hoping they were going to make Anders, somehow, the architect of everything. I would have been perfectly satisfied with a geeky Time Loop, something that at least, in the terms of Science Fiction, made some sort of sense.

Instead, we have platitudes, moralizing, and no satisfying climax.

If one of my author friends had done this, I’d have completely jumped on them for it.  Maybe the Battlestar Galactica  writers were trying to make some sort of statement. If so, well…I feel totally let down.  It was disappointing, pointless, and gave NOTHING that was promised. It was a total cop out.

Update: I completely agree with this post. Totally and utterly.

Update #2: And Mur nails it as well. My god. This ending breaks every rule of good fiction.  AARGGGHH!

If there’s any one songwriter able to transfix me with his work, it’s Richard Shindell. I’ve got most of the albums he’s put out, and I never tire of them,. He’s got that most rare of talents, a poetic bent and a sense for the supporting melody that can hold you still and command you to listen.

He’s a folk singer in the best sense of the word, sticking to common themes that draw forth emotion and spur contemplation. And just when contemplation is turning a bit maudlin, he’ll draw you back out with something upbeat and lighthearted.

If you enjoy guitar-driven folk with a strong lyrical component, I strongly recommend any of his albums, though I think Somewhere Near Patterson is probably my favorite. Additionally, the collaboration between him, Dar Williams and Lucy Kaplanski on Cry Cry Cry is one of the favorite CDs in the Miller household.

I’ll leave you with a Seeqpod playlist of a few songs…hope you like what you hear.

SeeqPod – Playable Search