I heard that Sara Douglass passed away from cancer.
I first noticed her book ‘BattleAxe’ with a highly garish cover, at the old Angus & Robertson at the top of the Queen Street Mall. (Last time I went there, that entire bookshop was gone.) Flipping through, I saw that Sara was Australian. Someone who’d written a thick, chunky fantasy novel. BattleAxe was good stuff – a strong action-line, vivid battles, and story that kept me enthralled. I haven’t re-read them since I was a teenager, but I still remember the imagery of the Icarii, the Star Dance, WolfStar’s machinations, Gorgrael’s threats and lonely rule over the icepack and the wonderful themes of magic returning to a land.
The sequel trilogy, the Wayfarer Redemption, was far different from the books that were hinted at in the closing chapters of ‘StarMan’, much like how the prequel trilogy we imagined when we saw the old Star Wars films was different to what we actually got. But I still remember the Time Keeper demons and the final fate of the land of Tencendor.
I met her at a signing at the old ‘Pages’ bookshop, where she was aghast that someone had called their child ‘DragonStar’, after the hero of the second ‘Axis’ trilogy. I asked her why she had killed off a character I had liked, who I thought had died an untimely death, and she said “Because I can.”
Sara’s strength as a writer was her ability to create powerful, vivid concepts and images in her fantasy that proudly stood out of all the fantasy mush I read as a teenager. It was just different enough to be interesting and attention-grabbing, born from an imagination that hadn’t been firmly watered in Tolkien and quest-based fantasy. My favourite book of hers would be Threshold, a dark romance set in an Egyptian-style setting – an epic story neatly contained in a single book. As I’m writing this, all the memories of the times I read these books are coming back to me, along with snapshots of the plots, and clear pictures of the characters, loved and loathed.
Sara will be missed.
Originally published at Lotusvine. You can comment here or there.
Originally published at Lotusvine. You can comment here or there.
Inspired by the recent LJ outage, I’ve moved out and put up a new WordPress site at www.lotusvine.com – it’s about time I did something with that domain name I’ve been lugging around for years! Posts should still be cross-posted to LJ/FB if the technology holds itself together. I’ll be still hitting you with that infrequent mix of movie/book reviews, personal stuff and random gibberish I waffle on about. I’d love to talk about writing, but will have more on that down the track as I try and get all the bits together for the home stretch of the current novel.
I can really sympathise with George RR Martin’s labours in pulling ‘Dance with Dragons’ together at this stage!
*rushes home*
Load of spoilers below.
I will probably ruin the movie for you if you haven’t seen it yet.
( Read more... )
The gist of the story of is that Christopher Banks grew up in Shanghai, having a close childhood friendship with his neighbour, a Japanese boy his own age. Christopher’s father worked at an opium company while his mother became an anti-opium activist. Later, Christopher’s father goes missing, and then later on, his mother. Christopher returns to London, where grows up and studies to become a detective, with the later ambition of returning to Shanghai and discovering what became of his parents.
Christopher is an ‘unreliable narrator’ – the reader is tipped off early when different characters share their reminiscences about Christopher as a child, while he recalls his own nature to be completely different. When Christopher returns to Shanghai in 1937, he quickly slips into a rather deluded state, convinced that his parents have been imprisoned in a house in the war zone for all these years. Everyone appears to be helpful and supportive in this endeavour, to point of complete unfeasibility. There’s an odd disconnect between Christopher’s obsession, what everyone else tells him, and the bloody, war-time landscape he describes as the Japanese army invades China, while the British continue their oblivious parties within the confines of the international settlement. Maybe that’s the point of the novel, but I’m still think a story has to work on its basic, literary level, even if the novel’s theme is more important than the story.
Christopher is also an emotionally distant and rather unlikeable narrator, running away from his few chances of happiness– a relationship with a lonely socialite, his relationship with his ward – to follow his obsession. My rule of thumb for unlikeable characters is that they have to up to interesting things for me to want to read more about them, but Christopher’s story is slow, with the first half of the book told in a cascade of flashbacks before Christopher’s trip to Shanghai starts. Although a detective, Christopher’s deductive skills and logic are all off-camera. He simply pulls his evidence out of the air (presumably having researched it earlier, like in a cooking show) and when people tell him otherwise, he is convinced of that they are either wrong or lying to him in order to ratify the inner world of his delusion. The book’s ending feels like a sort of Hollywood twist ending, and doesn’t really justify the hints planted regarding Christopher’s delusional experiences, making the entire experience feel odd and lacking. The book is marketed as a detective story, but isn’t really, as there really isn’t any sense of investigation going on. While the writing is excellent, it’s also rather distant. The descriptions of Shanghai put in me in mind of a Victoria Holt novel, distantly examined, but you never feel like you’re ‘there’, apart from the single highlight of Christopher’s journey into the war zone between China and Japan, particularly when he meets a soldier whom he believes to be Akira.
I’ll probably read another Ishiguro book in the future; but whatever this book was supposed to do, it didn’t work for me.
Originally published at Lotusvine. You can comment here or there.
I saw Muse last night at the Acer Arena, discovering their visit a few days before almost accidentally. Even with less than optimal seating (I was up the top of the arena and to the side-rear of the stage) it was a fantastic experience. On top of the live music, there was a fantastic use of colour, with the screens and laser lights. The stagecraft of the concert was really fine-tuned. The gigantic eye balloons that dropped into the mess of crowd and light was a great effect. And Muse played straight for two hours, without a break. They’d rest by letting another band member do a drum, guitar, piano or harmonica sola, so that the music never stopped. I even bought a t- shirt! Despite the fine, concert-going wisdom imparted to me by sirtwist, there were still plenty of folk there clad in the current tour’s shirt. And a large number of scalpers outside, even those selling cheap merchdise!
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.
I saw Muse last night at the Acer Arena, discovering their visit a few days before almost accidentally. Even with less than optimal seating (I was up the top of the arena and to the side-rear of the stage) it was a fantastic experience. On top of the live music, there was a fantastic use of colour, with the screens and laser lights. The stagecraft of the concert was really fine-tuned. The gigantic eye balloons that dropped into the mess of crowd and light was a great effect. And Muse played straight for two hours, without a break. They'd rest by letting another band member do a drum, guitar, piano or harmonica sola, so that the music never stopped. I even bought a t- shirt! Despite the fine, concert-going wisdom imparted to me by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
sirtwist, there were still plenty of folk there clad in the current tour's shirt. And a large number of scalpers outside, even those selling cheap merchdise!
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.
Originally published at Lotusvine. You can comment here or there.
Shaam just walked in, miaowing, as though there was nothing wrong with being away for two days. This lends credence to the ‘stuck in a garage theory’, although he didn’t seem that hungry. My flatmate is convinced it’s because Shaam is roaming in search of (a) pussy, despite being neutered. Whatever the reason it’s good to have him back. Although now he’s asking to go out again, and that might be a while before that happens…
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.
Shaam just walked in, miaowing, as though there was nothing wrong with being away for two days. This lends credence to the 'stuck in a garage theory', although he didn't seem that hungry. My flatmate is convinced it's because Shaam is roaming in search of (a) pussy, despite being neutered. Whatever the reason it's good to have him back. Although now he's asking to go out again, and that might be a while before that happens...
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.
