swash swash, buckle buckle

To quote Orlando Bloom from the Pirates 1 outtakes... I actually ended up talking to my friend Kirsten from JYA online today, and she was telling me she wants to do her thesis on Middle English romances like the Arthur legends, which was very exciting. She also sent me to this quiz: What Character in Arthurian Legend are you? Be warned, most people tend to get Merlin. I'm interested to see what you come up with, Becky!

Just finished reading: Maps in a Mirror: The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card. By Orson Scott Card, obviously. I usually don't like short stories, but I like the way he writes them. They seem complete, plotwise, and that there is a point to them, and to the way he wrote them. But what I really liked was his commentary on the stories. Not just the usual "how this came to be published" stuff, but what he honestly thinks of them, where he got the ideas, what other people thought of them. And he also divided the book up by genre and had a discussion of it in the introduction to each section. I think it's fascinating to see what writers think of the different mediums they can work in; for example, he says that speculative fiction, especially science fiction, is the "last refuge of American religious literature" (religious literature meaning texts in which there is a search and a need to discover purpose; he claims what is usually called religious literature is really inspirational literature, where the purpose (ie. God) is assumed--no exploration, just affirmation). And I guess I do see that thread in science fiction...people still asking why, and what for. I just wouldn't have thought of it in those terms.

Pentecost Alley, by Anne Perry. This is intended to be a Bookcrossing RABCK, but for some reason--I needed a mindless distraction?--I had to read it first, and I must admit I was pleasantly surprised at the difference between this and the first two I read. It's almost twice as long as the others and has a much more sophisticated plot. Interestingly, although Charlotte's sister Emily usually assists Charlotte in helping her husband solve the crime by taking a different approach, in this book she actually ends up working at cross-purposes with Pitt. Too bad Perry couldn't make much more out of that; I think she likes her characters too much to let them be mad at each other. And there were some very weird narratively distant moments, like when Pitt is thinking about the case, and this theory and that theory, and then this omnicient narrator comes in saying "he didn't think about this." Kind of weird...maybe an editor moment? I don't know. Anyway, now that I'm done, time to send it along.