Public Service Announcement - New Jargon
Seeing as how I recently finished The Fencer Trilogy by KJ Parker (great stuff, by the way. If you're at all inclined towards fantasy, get your hands on this one ASAP. Totally gives me back my faith in the genre), I now have a new concept of slang to add to my language - Proof.
As in, you're proof, meaning you've been through the trial and come out the otherside perhaps slightly dented, but certified as pass.
Got it? No? Oh go read the books then. It's a fabulous concept.
(and yes, I'm still at work)
PS. The more I read the work of and about KJ Parker, the more enamoured of her I become. For instance, a good illustration of the above and of her in the exerpt below from her bio page:
I've always preferred to play with characters. Mostly I torture them, like a spoilt child breaking her toys just because she can. Coming from a harsh environment, I find that human beings are at their most interesting when the going gets tough. I'm interested in a world in which there are no heroes and villains, where right is a luxury and wrong a pressure to be resisted as long as possible, but with realistic expectations.
PPS. Sorry one last thing, if you need another reason still to pick up her books. She has a great track record in terms of actually finishing series, and given our house rule (we try really, really hard to only start series that are either finished or the author is dead), I found the following really amusing:
Devices and Desires is the beginning of your third fantasy trilogy. Have you ever been tempted to write a longer series, George R.R. Martin or Robert Jordan style?
Temptation is always with us; but, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, the difference between luck and a Land Rover is that luck doesn't work better if you push it. I'd like one day to acquire sufficient technical skill to write, say, a seven-part series. I'd also like to be president of the United States, but that's equally unlikely.
So go read her books already
As in, you're proof, meaning you've been through the trial and come out the otherside perhaps slightly dented, but certified as pass.
Got it? No? Oh go read the books then. It's a fabulous concept.
(and yes, I'm still at work)
PS. The more I read the work of and about KJ Parker, the more enamoured of her I become. For instance, a good illustration of the above and of her in the exerpt below from her bio page:
I've always preferred to play with characters. Mostly I torture them, like a spoilt child breaking her toys just because she can. Coming from a harsh environment, I find that human beings are at their most interesting when the going gets tough. I'm interested in a world in which there are no heroes and villains, where right is a luxury and wrong a pressure to be resisted as long as possible, but with realistic expectations.
PPS. Sorry one last thing, if you need another reason still to pick up her books. She has a great track record in terms of actually finishing series, and given our house rule (we try really, really hard to only start series that are either finished or the author is dead), I found the following really amusing:
Devices and Desires is the beginning of your third fantasy trilogy. Have you ever been tempted to write a longer series, George R.R. Martin or Robert Jordan style?
Temptation is always with us; but, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, the difference between luck and a Land Rover is that luck doesn't work better if you push it. I'd like one day to acquire sufficient technical skill to write, say, a seven-part series. I'd also like to be president of the United States, but that's equally unlikely.
So go read her books already