Juvenile? Maybe, but I couldn’t help snickering at this parody of Twilight, written by the Harvard Lampoon. I wouldn’t pay $13.95 for the whole thing, but if I cared more about Twilight…maybe.
Having read the first book* in the Twilight series, I can confirm that the writing is ripe for ridicule; I found myself wanting to create a drinking game in which I did a shot of whiskey every time Edward emitted a throaty chuckle, or said something to Bella in a husky voice, or Edward’s eyes were described as butterscotch, amber, topaz, golden (WE GET IT, THEY’RE YELLOWISH), or every time Bella bit her lip.
Anyway, here’s the excerpt:
********************
It was then that I saw him. He was sitting at a table all by himself, not even eating. He had an entire tray of baked potatoes in front of him and still, he did not touch a single one. How could a human have his pick of baked potatoes and resist them all? Even odder, he hadn’t noticed me, Belle Goose, future Academy Award winner.
A computer sat before him on the table. He stared intently at the screen, narrowing his eyes into slits and concentrating those slits on the screen as if the only thing that mattered to him was physically dominating that screen. He was muscular, like a man who could pin you up against the wall as easily as a poster, yet lean, like a man who would rather cradle you in his arms. He had reddish, blonde-brown hair that was groomed heterosexually. He looked older than the other boys in the room—maybe not as old as God or my father, but certainly a viable replacement. Imagine if you took every woman’s idea of a hot guy and averaged it out into one man. This was that man.
“What is that?” I asked, knowing that whatever it was it wasn’t avian.
“That’s Edwart Mullen,” Lucy said.
Edwart. I had never met a boy named Edwart before. Actually, I had never met any human named Edwart before. It was a funny sounding name. Much funnier than Edward.
As we sat there, gazing at him for what seemed like hours but couldn’t have been more than the entire lunch period, his eyes suddenly flicked toward me, slithering over my face and boring into my heart like fangs. Then in a flash they went back to glowering at that screen.
“He moved here two years ago from Alaska,” she said.
So not only was he pale like me, but he was also an outsider from a state that begins with an “A.” I felt a surge of empathy. I had never felt a connection like this before.
“That boy’s not worth your time,” she said wrongly. “Edwart doesn’t date.”
I smirked inwardly and snorted outwardly. So, I would be his first girlfriend.
********************
The entire book, called Nightlight, will be available for sale November 3rd.
*and by that I mean all four, in fairly rapid succession
You might have thought J.K. Rowling was rather old hat these days. A little bit forgotten even. It’s Dan Brown everywhere you look at the moment and then wham! AbeBooks goes and sells a $6,000 copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. It was a first edition of the leather collector’s edition – one of only 100 numbered copies that were signed by J.K. Rowling.
Apparently, these copies were distributed randomly to buyers who bought the collector’s edition from Amazon.co.uk. Somebody got something very special in the mail considering any book signed by J.K Rowling has instant value on the rare book market. For instance, in December 2007, the AbeBooks charity auction sold a signed copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for $3,950.
The collector’s edition of Beedle the Bard is leather-bound and jeweled with an embroidered velvet bag, and an envelope containing 10 prints by Rowling herself. Everything is housed in a faux book clamshell case.
The 2009 Hugo Awards were given out this past weekend at Anticipation in Montreal. The winners for the book related catagories were as follows.
Best Novel: The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
Best Novella: “The Erdmann Nexus”, Nancy Kress
Best Novelette: “Shoggoths in Bloom”, Elizabeth Bear
Best Related Book: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008, John Scalzi
Full award winner list is available on the Hugo Awards site
A BBC radio show and a series of newspaper articles have reignited demand on AbeBooks for an out-of-print treasure-hunting book that sold a million copies 30 thirty years ago before fading into obscurity.
Masquerade by Kit Williams is an illustrated children’s fantasy puzzle book. Originally published in August 1979, the book contains clues within its illustrations as to the whereabouts of a small gold and jewelled amulet hare (worth £5,000 at the time - a decent but not excessive prize for 30 years ago) that had been buried somewhere in the United Kingdom. In an era before search engines, the idea of a search for real buried treasure turned the book into a worldwide bestseller.
Not only did Williams’ illustrations hold the key to buried treasure, they are beautiful and intriguing depictions of English wildlife accompanied by a captivating storyline. The moon falls in love with the sun and wants to give him a token of her affection, and sends Jack Hare as her courier. Masquerade describes his journey to deliver the moon’s amulet to the sun. But somewhere along the way Jack Hare drops the amulet and the reader must unravel the clues to find the buried treasure.
The puzzle was not easy to crack. In fact, it’s still completely baffling, although the location of the golden hare was widely reported and can be discovered in seconds with a Google search. Thirty years ago, readers formed teams to help each other map their way through the book’s dead ends and red herrings. The buzz about Masquerade spread across the world attracting many treasure-hunting visitors to the UK.
Three years after the book’s publication, the hare was found but under controversial circumstances. A man who identified himself as Ken Thomas discovered the loot but it was later found he had given a false name and was called Dugald Thompson – he was the business partner of a man who was the then-boyfriend of Kit Williams’ ex-girlfriend (whom the artist had been dating when developing the treasure hunt scheme). Thompson/Thomas sold the hare in 1988 at auction for £31,900 to an anonymous overseas bidder and that was the end of the Masquerade story …until the middle of July 2009 when BBC Radio 4 broadcasted a show to mark the 30th anniversary of Masquerade’s publication and Williams gave his first interview in years. The media coverage renewed interest in Masquerade and it became the bestselling book on AbeBooks.co.uk for the week of 13-19 July.
A quick search on AbeBooks revealed one of our local Canadian booksellers in Victoria, BC, Limebay Books (thanks Linda) who are located about a kilometre from our office, had a copy so within 40 minutes we were able to see the book for ourselves.
The 1979 editions of Masquerade are rather hard to locate but second-hand later editions of the book are plentiful and affordable. It’s a great story about an extraordinary book.
Over on the Boing-Boing blog, Cory Doctorow has put up a really lovely and touching tribute to Phyllis Gotlieb, the Canadian Science Fiction novelist and poet who died yesterday at age 83.
She was best known for her novel Sunburst about a nuclear accident and the resultant effects on the surviving people, both disabilities and peculiar enhancements. Sunburst is said to have been one of the inspirations for the X-Men comics.
Doctorow’s tribute reads as follows:
Phyllis Gotlieb, the legendary Canadian science fiction writer, died yesterday. Phyllis was very old but very sharp — I last saw her at an Ad Astra convention in Toronto a few years ago, and I followed her on a mailing list for Canadian sf writers, where she was a smart and funny poster. Phyllis wrote well into her old age, continuing her very long career in the field.
I first met Phyllis at Ad Astra, the Toronto area science fiction convention. She and I were co-panelists on the very first panel I ever sat on. I was 17 and I’d just sold my first story. Phyllis was well into her senior years. She was delightful. I don’t remember what the subject of the panel was, but I remember the warmth and wit with which Phyllis engaged with little pipsqueak me, the welcome she made me feel as a freshman writer. I have never, ever forgotten that — the author of O Master Caliban! deigning to notice me, much less treat me as a colleague.
Phyllis and her husband were palpably, achingly in love (he once had my father in his university physics class, a class he never forgot). We had dinner together in 2007 at Ad Astra, and the two of them were the epitome of sweet old married coupledom, finishing each others’ sentences, helping each other in a million tiny and affectionate ways.
By my reckoning, Phyllis was 82 when she died (I don’t know the details of the death). I can only hope that when I’m 80, I’ll be as sharp, productive and good-spirited as Phyllis was when I last saw her. Science fiction has lost one of its greats today, and Canada, too. My sincerest condolences to her family. You are missed, Phyllis.
Couldn’t have put it better myself. Lovely words.
The 2009 Locus awards for the best science fiction books were announced yesterday. You can see the whole list of winners at their website but here are the highlights
Sci fi novel: Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Fantasy novel: Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
First novel: Singularity’s Ring by Paul Melko
YA book: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Novella: Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link
Everyone seems to be chattering about the gorgeous teaser photos from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and I can see why - the rich color, fantastical distortion and surreal decor certainly lend an air of magic and excitement to the project.
And I can think of no better subject for Burton’s brand of weird, dark, beautiful and grotesque art than Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. From the hookah smoking caterpillar to the Cheshire cat, Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum to the white rabbit, the books were wonderful and nightmarish, hallucinogenic and marvellous, full of lush, strange imagery throughout.
If you’ve never read the book of Alice in Wonderland it’s well worth it. Carroll’s talking animals, funny backward logic and adventures are perfect for children, and the vivid imagery and bizarre story are dark and interesting enough to have adults turning pages, too.
Here are some more beautiful Alice in Wonderland pictures - this time, of some of the collectible, unusual and always gorgeous editions of Alice in Wonderland available on AbeBooks.
It would appear that JK Rowling is facing not one but two accusations of plagarism.
John Buechler, director of the film Troll claims that Rowling used a script from the film to create her Harry Potter series. Buechler says the film is based on the experiences of a young wizard and wants to prove to Warner Bros that Troll was actually the beginning of Harry Potter.
Secondly, the family of late English writer Adrian Jacobs is suing Rowling and her publisher for £500million. They claim that Harry Potter was copied from Jacobs’ Willy the Wizard. The manuscript for Willy was sent to Bloomsbury Publishing’s literary agent Christopher Little who later represented Rowling, but the book was rejected. The book was published by a smaller company under the name The Adventures Of Willy The Wizard No 1: Livid Land. Jacobs died in 1997, before the success of Harry Potter played out but now his estate which includes his son and grandson, claim that Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire was plagarised.
Now doesn’t this also mean that John Buechler should be suing Jacobs’ estate and vice-versa?!
Congratulations to Edward L. Ferman (editor and publisher), Michael Whelan (artist), Frank R. Paul (artist) and Connie Willis (author) on being the 2009 inductees into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
The four join the ranks of such celebrated names as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, Robert A. Heinlein, Ursula K. Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, Jules Verne, and many many more.
I’m happy to see Connie Willis in there, finally -I think The Doomsday Book is among the finest pieces of science fiction ever written. It’s an excellent book.
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame is found at the EMP/SFM (Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum) in Seattle, which, if you’ve never attended, is a pretty cool and fascinating way to spend a half day or so (no fewer than three hours - last time I went I rushed, and was pretty disappointed).
How fantastic. In Adventure and fantasy writer’s Jules Verne’s hometown of Nantes, France, the Estuary 2009 Arts Festival will include a 9.5- metre-tall deep-sea diver, the latest creation from French mechanical marionette street theater company Royale de Luxe.
The theater company includes elaborate stories with each of their creations, and the giant deep-sea diver is no exception. His history includes the Titanic, a dead sister, a missing niece, secret messages from geysers and a job spent sawing icebergs.
On Friday, the giant “woke” and made his way through the town, to the delight, admiration and astonishment of onlookers. The functioning marionette weighs two and a half tons, and requires 30 people to operate and move him.
I can only imagine Jules Verne, with his love of adventure, a story well told, and the grandiose, would approve.
The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
In completely unrelated news, Yahoo News reported today that Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro teamed up with thriller writer Chuck Hogan to write a book called The Strain that combines three things I find almost irresistable - post-apocalyptic type stuff, vampires, and zombies. Actually, it sounds like a mutant virus that sort of COMBINES vampires and zombies. Watch out for the vampies! Anyway, it’s already out - why did I not know about this before?! AND it’s the first book of a trilogy, so if I love it, I get to enjoy the giddy agony of waiting for the other books.
“…a visceral page-turner that reimagines vampirism as a virus that causes its victims’ bodies to mutate — disgustingly — into buglike creatures, stomping zombie-style around Manhattan and wreaking havoc. A disparate team of a rogue CDC doctor, rat-catcher and an Eastern European pawnshop owner come together to try to stop them.”
Anyway, I have two predictions. The first is that it will be pretty bad, and the second is that I will devour and love every minute of it nonetheless (then lick the orange powder from my fingers).