Just hanging there, face froze

[sovay]

1. My poem "Gorgoneion" has been accepted by The Cascadia Subduction Zone. It was written a few nights ago, after discovering this statue. It's a prayer.

2. All that stuff I mentioned about Uncanny Magazine yesterday? It's live! Enjoy!

3. Strange Horizons Fund Drive! Less than two weeks to go and we haven't even unlocked Rose Lemberg and Emily Jiang's musical collaboration. Doesn't anyone other than me want to read a new novella by Ann Leckie set in the Radch-verse?

Some kind stranger who is almost certainly yhlee sent me a copy of Roger Zelazny's Creatures of Light and Darkness (1969)! I can't tell anything about it from the back-cover text at all. I am looking forward.

Comments

[yhlee]

Congrats on the poem!

And yes, that was me with the book. I hope you enjoy it (or, alternately, find enjoyable snark in it, whatever happens).

[sovay]

Congrats on the poem!

Thank you!

And yes, that was me with the book. I hope you enjoy it (or, alternately, find enjoyable snark in it, whatever happens).

Seriously, this is the Avon paperback copy:

"A thousand thousand years ago . . .

The Middle Worlds of Life were ruled by the Angels, immortals who maintained the fragile balance of existence while bowing to one only—the Prince Who Was A Thousand. But the Prince is long fallen, his Angels and their stations long destroyed. Now Anubis and Osiris rule the twin houses of Life and Death . . . and their terrible reign has seen feast and famine overrun the six races of man and all the worlds they occupy . . .

One such world is Blis. Now to this place come emissaries from the twin houses, bent on destroying the only remaining threat to their power—the long-vanished Prince . . . and all those who would dare stand with him."

I don't know what I'm looking at, except it sounds vaguely Hermetic and possibly cracktastic. But it succeeds in making me want to read the book to find out. Thank you!

[yhlee]

It's PURE CRACK. It's cracky even EDIT: /more/ for [fixed braino] Zelazny--not just in subject matter, but in stylistic hijinks. I look forward to hearing what you think of it (and will probably be doing a reread myself after I finish Dickson's Soldier, Ask Not, which has priority due to being a library book). :)

[sovay]

. It's cracky even EDIT: /more/ for [fixed braino] Zelazny--not just in subject matter, but in stylistic hijinks.

Yay, stylistic crack! Let me get a couple of books for professional review out of the way and I shall report on my findings!

[edit] I read the novel today on various subways; it's great! The chapter in poetry and the chapter in the form of a play. The far-future Egyptian myth and the six intelligent races of the universe and the carpet woven with the fibers of Osiris' enemy which he jumps up and down on when he's stressed. I can see why it was dedicated to Delany. I can also see how it became a book you love. The prose is wonderful.

[movingfinger]

If you haven't read that before, have you at least encountered the Possibly Proper Death Litany?

[sovay]

If you haven't read that before, have you at least encountered the Possibly Proper Death Litany?

I had not, although having read the book on the subway this afternoon and evening, I believe I can identify it in hindsight.

[movingfinger]

It is so widespread in fandom, and I am sure there are references to it in other books, I was sure you must know it. But that's the source. (AFAIK.)

[gwynnega]

Congratulations on the poem acceptance!

I'm looking forward to reading Uncanny Magazine!

[sovay]

Congratulations on the poem acceptance!

Thank you!

I'm looking forward to reading Uncanny Magazine!

It's good! And currently closed to unsolicited poetry submissions, but still reading for short fiction.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Well done! May the rest of November be creative for you. I'm looking forward to Uncanny.

I've never even heard of that particular Zelazny! *looks it up*

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

It's been described as similar in some ways to Lord of Light, except with Egyptian mythology. And also, Creatures of Light and Darkness is pure crack both in subject matter and stylistic experimentation. I love it very much, but it's more obscure than Lord of Light and I imagine that's why.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :-)

[sovay]

It's been described as similar in some ways to Lord of Light, except with Egyptian mythology.

Lord of Light was the first Zelazny I ever read. I have no idea why, except it was on the shelf next to the box set of the first four Amber novels and it looked interesting. [edit] The original Amber quartet is another case where I read the books very, very young and retained only a fragmentary understanding of them until re-reading in college. I remembered liking Random, and still did. I have not re-read Lord of Light and have no idea how it would hold up now.

[sovay]

Well done! May the rest of November be creative for you.

It's actually been a good month so far: two publications, two acceptances, one poem written. If I can just keep this pace up and add some fiction . . .

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, Creatures of Light and Darkness! That and Silverberg's Thorns were my models of what an "adult" book should be, growing up, which probably explains a lot.

[sovay]

That and Silverberg's Thorns were my models of what an "adult" book should be, growing up, which probably explains a lot.

I haven't read Thorns . . .

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I think I talked about Thorns at one point, but let's put it this way: this is a book in which A) the first line is "'Pain is instructive,' said Duncan Chalk.", B) Silverberg takes every opportunity to quote Chaucer and anybody else who comes to mind, in order to prove how educated one of his characters--a starship captain taken apart and put back together wrong by curious aliens--is ("'Moder, mercy, let me dye,'" he says, at one point, looking at himself in the mirror, only to have his reflection answer: "'For Adam out of Hell buy, and Mankind that is forloren'...if not, then live."), C) sex is often used as a plot point and D) every character is some variety of self-proclaimed freak. It's really clever but probably not as clever as it thinks it is, slim and lurid and the world-building is pretty facile, but I still love it, even after all these years: psychological space opera, for the win.

[sovay]

It's really clever but probably not as clever as it thinks it is, slim and lurid and the world-building is pretty facile, but I still love it, even after all these years: psychological space opera, for the win.

It sounds pretty gonzo. I'll look it up.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Did you see that Somerville is taking applications for a Poet Laureate (http://www.somervilleartscouncil.org/poetlaureate)?

[sovay]

Did you see that Somerville is taking applications for a Poet Laureate?

Yes! rushthatspeaks showed me. I have to think about the public benefit component—I have no experience with community visibility outside of conventions, which are not exactly Somerville-specific.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I have brainstormy ideas about this, if you get to the point that you'd like input.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I've got Uncanny Magazine in a tab but still haven't had a chance to look at more than the intro
-_-

Congratulations on the acceptances!

[sovay]

Congratulations on the acceptances!

Thank you! Enjoy the magazine.