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The Jevlir Caravansary

Month: April 2008

  • Seven (or more) Deadly Words

    . . . in book reviews. In this intriguing post, Bob Harris crafts a compelling list of words that all writers should eschew when they muse upon the content of a book they are about to review. Unfortunately, despite his best use of vocabulary, I found his post neither lyrical nor poignant. Try harder Bob!

    Now I’m going to search on each of those words. I suspect that their only occurrences on this blog will be in this post. I must admit, however, that I both tend to use excessively complex syntax, and often words that are more obscure than necessary. I also fall afoul of (should that be on the list?) some of the words noted in the comments.

    Update: I find two reviews on this blog that use one of these words, one for “compelling” and one for “intriguing.” You will find “craft” in an entry about picking up a book at a craft show. The remaining four don’t occur. I’ll have to try harder! Also, HT to evangelical outpost.

  • Tlisli: In the Forbidden Ground

    [This is a work of fiction, as should be obvious throughout. Nothing in it resembles anything else enough to be mistaken for reality, but just in case someone disagrees, if you think it represents something in real life, it doesn’t. This is the second installment in the Tlisli Series, and is continued from Tlisli’s Escape.]

    Crossing the stream was not difficult, though it had it’s own dangers, and after crawling out on the other side, Tlisli plunged into the jungle on the other side. She hoped that just crossing into the forbidden ground would discourage her pursuers. But it was not to be.

    After several minutes of pushing through jungle, she noticed the undergrowth getting thinner, and soon she came out in a clearing. The clearing was occupied by a small hill, and it looked to her like the jungle surrounded the hill, but only grass and small plants grew on the hill itself. To her left, less than 30 meters away, it looked like there had been a recent washout, a gully with mud banks cutting into the hill. What was now a small brook flowed at the bottom of it, and appeared to go toward the stream she had crossed several minutes before.

    Tlisli decided that she would be better off passing the hill in this newly opened path than by walking over. There was no cover at all at the top of the hill.

    (more…)

  • Book: Paradise

    I’ve been reading a lot of Mike Resnick’s work lately, especially after encountering his short story Kirinyaga, and then the book built from a number of short stories set in that world. He’s always an exceptional storyteller.

    With that, I picked up Paradise, currently it appears only available used. I got my copy from my local public library, on which let me make a comment. Support your public library. It’s a wonderful institution.

    Now Paradise is not a book with a theme I would normally enjoy. But this book is interesting and thoughtful and provides a variety of characters to love or hate, or more likely feel ambivalent about. (Don’t even think of mentioning the preposition at the end of a sentence!)

    The lead character is a writer who writes first about the people who have been involved with the early years of human contact on the planet Peponi, which means Paradise in a local language. One thing leads to another until he finally visits the planet he has been writing about and gets a direct view.

    The problems frequently reflect those of colonialism here on earth. I’d like to think we’d have better sense by the time, if ever, that we contact other sentient species on other worlds. Realistically, that’s probably not a very realistic hope. Even more, just what would “better sense” be in this context? There’s a great deal of room for wondering just exactly what each person should have done in this story. Certainly there are many specific things that are either definitely bad or definitely good.

    But even assuming that the exploiters could be kept off a world like this, what would happen with the philanthropists? One imagines that perhaps a Star Trek style non-interference directive (obviously better defined and better enforced than in the series) might be the only answer. No two species would actually meet until each had developed a certain level of technology. But thinking about that leads me to many questionable situations as well.

    Moralizing aside, or perhaps because of it, I really enjoyed watching the various characters work through their situations. Each is constrained by his or her own background and situation, and often there are not nearly as many choices as the outsider, such as a reader might think.

    Now don’t get the idea that this story is made up of philosophizing and moralizing. The story is well told and well worth reading for fun as well as for thinking. Resnick sneaks the thinking into the cracks and you get caught up asking yourself questions, or at least I do, but perhaps I’m strange.

    I strongly recommend this book whether you have to order it used or find it at your public library. Get a copy and enjoy!

  • Upgraded to WordPress 2.5 – More to Come

    I’ve been neglecting this blog for a few days, but I do have some things to write about. You can expect a couple of posts today, and then another couple by Saturday.

    The testing of WordPress 2.5 went from RC1 to RC3, and then to installing the final edition. I did most of the testing elsewhere, though I played with the layout of the site and checked plugins.

    I’m pretty happy with the new version, though I disagree with some of the choices made in the layout of the administrative pages.

    Stand by for more. . . .