Bloodsucking, friendship, ukuleles, frostbite, a dead poet and a rather unusual hat
Today I left school at the perfect time, which was quarter to four. This has, really fairly improbable for a whole bunch of reasons: my school officially ends at four; I have a lesson until four on a Thursday; I am not predisposed to skive gratuitously; I am even less disposed to skive off English lessons. It becomes somewhat less surprising
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Game series? Quelle joue? (And yes, that is essentially the extent of my functioning French. Um. Er.)
I once met a young man who once wrote a short piece about two electrons and a particle accelerator and was told that it was the most romantic thing he'd ever written. So it just goes to show...
I came to Banks a little later than I should have done, really, and at exactly the right time. cenestpasunewok (then known to me as Thrawn McEwok) a bit of a legend (in the original sense of the word) on the fanfic forums that I used to haunt before I drifted over here, being very eloquent, very talented and very wry. I ended up being a bit of a McEwok groupie (along with elenathehun) and commenting and theorising on his 'fic, which was really rather exceptional by the standards I was used to, and having great fun when the politics came down by arguing the case for Rishathra Rights rather voraciously - but the point that I was actually attempting to get to before getting lost down memory lane was that he was a rather big fan of Iain (M.) Banks and repeatedly plugged him. Eventually I found a copy of Inversionsat the library and took it out.
I hated it.
Well, that's a lie; I just didn't understand it, and couldn't work out where it was going or why it existed at all. A few years later I saw a copy of Dead Air on sale for a pound or somesuch ridiculous price in Books etc and, recognising the name, picked it up and subsequently devoured it and any other Banks that I could get my grubby little hands on, which is now almost all of it...
(Also, as I am rubbish at uploading images, may I suggest you check the inbox of the e-mail address in your profile? :D)
I'd lend you my copy, but am currently using it for the purposes of writing a dorky analysis of it for coursework. :D And I rather liked the ending - but that's because I realised what Huxley's doing. (I think the book's a tragedy - just not one with an individual subject...)
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The Halo series. Extra-canon materials are full of Eliot references, and the games themselves contain some too - most notably, repeated variations on and echoes of the line "This is the way the world ends". The series references a lot of things, from obscure!highlyliterary!poetry to older pulp SF. 'Tis full of much yay.
Then again, the Halo 'verse is also surprisingly reminiscent of the Culture 'verse in some ways - and the Haloes were actually inspired in part by the Culture Orbitals (I knew it! Knew it as soon as I saw them! Though they're more Ringworld-esque in appearance, if not scale...)
I am now officially intrigued. Who was said young man, and is said short story available for reading anywhere?
I'm a little surprised that I knew instantly what "Rishathra Rights" meant, because I a). haven't been on the tf.n boards for ages and b). never was a regular there anyway. Go go interspecies team! :D And having acquired a working knowledge of Larry Niven, I now know where rishathra comes from as well... but I'm veering sharply off topic here.
I need to read some of IMB's Banks stuff, as opposed to just his M. Banks stuff.
Icon = full of win and love. What did you use for the background image? It looks somewhat familiar.
Eh, my copy's around here somewhere and the house is tiny... I should be able to find it. Though the tendency in houses of any size to spontaneously devour random objects is quite worrying. I used to insist that they fell through cracks in space-time somehow - that, or people crept in at night to steal things. It was the only explanation I could come up with for the frustrating and mysterious disappearances that went on.
It's certainly a tragedy - and one that I'm almost nervous about reading again now, because the more I think about it, the more I realise that it hits several of my specific, personal squicks extremely hard (as well as being generally disturbing, natch). Still going to re-read, of course.
[Edited for annoying bit of repetition - why yes, I am compulsive about these things. Comment-editing is my new friend].
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I really should play Halo some time. Find a cheap PC version or something...
Orbitals were pretty much stolen from Ringworld anyway, I believe. I'm pretty sure that was what he said in an interview somewhere, anyway...
The young man was a youth leader on a camp that I went on four summers ago now (is it that long ago? is it that recent?) and sadly I never got to see it. However, there was a different young man the year after who taught me to tell stories... :D
*laughs* The whole Rishathra thing was so ridiculous, but at least I'm now innoculated against fandom for life. :p But oh, Nrin/whatever-her-name-is for ever... :P
You do, yes. You'd also probably appreciate this... :D (I recently picked up State of the Art and The Bridge, and am currently about half way through the former. Yay for short stories, I say...
The background image is of a Warhammer 40k plasma gun, Imperial standard issue (he says, revealing his inner 11 year-old) found by searching 'plasma gun' on Google and grinning. Str7 Ap2 Rpdfr, overheats on a to hit of 1 :D
It's gnomes. I swear. Gnomes.
Thinking about it, isn't squick essentially what it's all about?
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Oh, you should, you should. I love it so very much. I managed to get Halo very cheaply, but the two sequels were slightly more expensive - though I still got them on special offer, so they weren't nearly as highly-priced as they would have been. *worships at Bungie's altar* 'Twas all worth it, despite my limited funds.
I may have read that interview! Was it the one where he mentioned someone having bought the film rights to The Player of Games? Am currently unsure how I feel about that... although film rights being owned doesn't necessarily mean that any such thing will ever get made, of course.
I have acquired a +8 resistance to Fandom Dramatics over the years, along with a +10 saving throw against Bad Fanfiction/Art (with a modifier added if it involves excruciating smut). 'Tis a very useful thing, fandom inoculation. :p
I... I... I appreciate it enough to give a virtual stutter! That's scintillatingly wonderfully awesomely fantastically full of win. And woo, Sma! *bookmarks for further reading* The temptation to write that Culture/Halo crossover lurking in my brainmeats (or at least to write an eljay post on how said crossover could potentially be written) is growing at a frightening rate.
Yay for short stories indeed! It has occurred to me that I might have more success with regards to getting back into writing if I put the Huge Epics of Doom that have been prodding at my brainmeats on indefinite hiatus and wrote short stories and drabbles instead for a while. I am also vere srsly considering signing up to fanfic100.
The picture reminded me a little of certain video game guns, at first glance; most notably, the zero-point energy field manipulator gravity gun from Half-Life 2. I have no idea why, since they don't look even remotely alike on second glance.
I was going to write something about BNW and horrible squicky false-utopias here, but I fear that long comment is becoming too long, and really should go to sleep now after having not done so all night. *points to timestamp* Maybe later, when I'm awake and in more of a position to brain. :p
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