Kevin's Watch

Oh, I fully intend to read it -- and hopefully soon. I haven't had time to read much of anything lately, other than to finish the book I was halfway done with when I left home to go out to New Mexico.

To give you an idea of how weird life has been lately, my husband hasn't been feeling well the last 2-3 months. Being a man, he has been refusing to go to the doctor. This Monday he was finally in enough pain to make an appointment. So in he went yesterday, only to have them schedule him for a round of neurological tests and an MRI (brain scan) for him at the hospital next week...hopefully they will figure out what is wrong and what to do about it...and hopefully if he is feeling better, my life will also settle down. please, God, let my life settle down...

I have been thinking about this since last night, VF, and while I have to hold off on final judgement until I can read the entire manuscript, that parts I have thus far read could certainly stand on their own.

I do not know much about the publishing business, but as long as it doesn't anger Tor, I see no reason not to submit your manuscript to overseas publishers. You have nothing to lose, and possibly something very good to gain.

I am up to chapter seven now, and must say these things:

1. very entertaining thus far, and I am glad that the two main plot lines are converging nicely

2. seems to be able to completely stand on its own

3. why and what did Tor want cut? so far it reads very smoothly...

Up to chapter 19 now, and it certainly can stand on its own so far.

Here are a couple of quotes which tickled me. I am carefully avoiding quotes which give out spoilers as to plot or characters, so it's OK for everyone to read them.

That remarkable and occasionally accurate book, the Wardhall Grammary, has much to say under the heading, "False Opposites". A false opposite, it says, consists of "inverting the minor term of a relation whilst keeping the relation itself intact", and is a prolific spawner of bonehead fallacies. For instance, a fool is one who would rather be happy than right. The opposite, of course, is a wise man: one who would rather be right than happy. (This may explain why philosophers never smile in their portraits.) The false opposite of a fool is a cynic, one who would rather be unhappy than right. (So may this). Half-clever persons miss these elegant little distinctions. Because they are cynical, they know they are different from fools, and must therefore, they tell themselves, be wise. We should not sneer. The world takes a cynic into its bosom, but inevitably shuns a wise man. And cynicism is such an easy trade to learn! Any half-wit can be unhappy, but it takes a lifetime of thankless hard work to be right.

The Wardhall Grammary, which seldom fails to offer worldly advice on any subject under the sun, says this about chastity:

"Sometimes classified as a virtue (q.v.), chastity is actually a sort of region in the penumbra of virtue. One may be chaste by having desire without opportunity, or by having opportunity without desire. Amatory virtue consists in having desire and opportunity, and resisting them both. The name of this particular virtue is not recorded by the philosophers, perhaps because it occurs too seldom to require a name."

I like those samples... Slight concern about this turn of phrase though:

That remarkable and occasionally accurate book, the Wardhall Grammary

Other than the name, I believe that line is - word for word - from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Actually, both of the quotes themselves reminded me too much of said book. In fact, I think it's the concept of the book itself - or the way it's described - that is too much like HHGG.

I would have to ask Variol, but I think it is meant to be a tribute to said book.

Lord Talon's Revenge is a satire and spoof of many things in the sf&f genre (though more on the fantasy side than the science fiction side.) He also sprinkles little tributes throughout...there is another bit that reminds me rather strongly of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

But he will have to officially explain his reasons, as this is only speculation on my part.

I had assumed it was a tribute, as you say, but to me it just seems a little too close to the HHGG.

CovenantJr wrote:I like those samples... Slight concern about this turn of phrase though:

That remarkable and occasionally accurate book, the Wardhall Grammary

Other than the name, I believe that line is - word for word - from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

No, not word for word, just rhythm for rhythm. (The quotation that follows, of course, is entirely unlike anything in HHGG.) Actually, HHGG is just one of a large class of fantasy and sf books in which a Book is a major mcguffin. This Book is usually portrayed as a compendium of all knowledge, or all esoteric knowledge, or all true knowledge about the conspiracy that actually runs the universe, depending on the author's take. The actual book (i.e., the novel) is often named after the fictitious Book mentioned therein. Clute & Grant's Encyclopaedia of Fantasy discusses this at nauseous length in the article 'Instauration Fantasy'. (The E. of F. is itself a kind of attempt at creating a capital-B Book of this kind, not in fiction, but in reality.)

So I'm sending up HHGG, as you can tell by the phrasing, but also the Necronomicon, the Book of the New Sun, the mythical unabridged version of The Princess Bride by S. Morgenstern, etc., etc. If an editor nails that passage for, as it were, rhyming too closely with the HHGG, I will of course alter it . . . but I'll wait for the order to fire.

I didn't realize until chatting with VF the other night, that I had never mentioned here that I had finished his manuscript.

I finished it shortly after my last post in this topic, in fact.

I fail to see why his editor at Tor feels it cannot be published at any time...while it might be tied in somehow with his more serious work (of which I have only read the first chapter, which is up at his website) this little book was easily read as a stand-alone novel.

In fact, since there is a dearth of humorous books in the genre, I would hope they would go ahead and publish it.

There was one scene which I thought a bit wince worthy

Spoiler

there was a gang band scene, involving girl who I thought to be a bit on the young side? but I might have misunderstood her age, since she is the youngest girl in the family? it was her age that bothered me in the scene, and, as I said, I might be thinking she is younger than she actually is?

, but I could understand why it was there, as it was an integral part of the plot

Spoiler

the girl was distracting some guards, and this allowed a large city to be captured with minimum loss of life

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I liked the way he turned many cliches of the genre on their heads, as well as the way he paid little tributes to many other works, such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And I liked the dragon,

Spoiler

though I wish he could have stuck around longer

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