Fantasist's Scroll

Why is this fun?
Because, it’s an American military German Phrasebook from World War II and it contains phrases like:
“You will be rewarded”, though they translate it to the German for “I will give you money”.
But it also has, “Don’t try any tricks!”, “Don’t shoot!”, and vocabulary for everything from “goggles” to “undershorts” to “a laxative”.
Yes, indeed, everything that a soldier could need to know in one tidy, little phrasebook.

Where was this when I put together my own conlang phrasebooks? Ah, well, at least it’s out there now. Have fun!

I finally finished Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel!
Though it was very long and not the kind of thing I usually read, it was atually a very good book. Of course, part of the hold up on my end was all the stress of the divorce, but I’m getting so that is my normal state of affairs, if you’ll pardon the pun. In any case, it was a different sort of book which came to my attention thanks to one of the many “Best of…” lists for fantasy literature. What caught my attention, in this case, was the very unusual setting for a fantasy novel: Great Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. The overall theme of the book centered on the rebirth of magic in England as brought about by the two title characters, Jonathan Strange and his mentor Mr. Gilbert Norrell.
I would be hard pressed to layout a single plot that describes the book, because there really wasn’t a single plot that dominated the action. Instead, it seemed to me that there were several stories going on at once that were interwoven. In fact, it was what I liked least about the work. It seemed to promote style over, well, over virtually anything else. Normally, that would spell disaster for me in a work, and may have been one of the things that made this particular book so hard to read at times, but, in the end, it worked. Among the more interesting sub-plots was one involving a Faerie King who steals away the wives of two characters in the book. As Faeries are wont to do in legend, he enchants them and makes their lives a kind of marzipan hell filled with music and dancing and celebrations of a somewhat inhuman nature.
Another story, if you will, is that of Jonathan Strange’s education and his competition with his mentor Mr. Norrell. At first, these two are the only “practical” magicians left in the world, and they are not even aware of each other. Soon enough, though, their lives become quite intertwined. The author, Susanna Clarke, uses the personalities of these two men to clearly illustrate two very different kinds of scholars and magicians. Each man embodies a different view of magic and how it should work and, of course, they are at odds. It is quite interesting to see the ways in which the two men rub each other the wrong way, but still need each other, as no one else in the world understands the things they each do. It is an interesting study of need, compulsion, desire, and, in a strange way, repulsion.

Though this was a very good book, I certainly would not want to make a steady diet of this sort of writing. There were far too many slow points and sections for my taste, but it was worth wading through them to gather up the gems of description and the pearls of characterization which Ms. Clarke scattered liberally throughout.
I reccomend the book to anyone who has read a lot of fantasy and is looking for a new challenge. But, it is certainly not light Summer reading for the beach!

This is the coolest book since the first encyclopedia!
To me, it is, anyway. I’ve been borrowing a friend’s copy of Facts About The World’s Languages and really enjoying it. I saw it on the shelf at his house back around Thanksgiving time and fell in love with it. It’s a little rich for my blood, right now, but I know that I’ll eventually get a copy. In a nutshell, Facts About The World’s Languages has basic phological and morphological thumbnails of virtually all the world’s known languages. It is super, super cool to see the phonogical analysis of major languages all laid out in easy-to-read tables and summarized in neat, little paragraphs. For one thing, it pretty well shows people making up their own languages how to layout such a description. For another, it’s providing me fodder for my own ideas about language creation. Best of all, it’s helping me do the hard parts, choosing a phonology and displaying it for others to read! That, for some reason, is the hardest damn thing for me. I just have a really hard time getting my head around the different labels for the syllabic descriptors. Frankly, I just can’t remember the difference between a labiodental consonant and a straight labial consonant and all that sort of thing. I guess it doesn’t really matter that much, but it bothers me.
In any case, this is the coolest bit of language-related inspiration that I’ve seen in a very long time. It neatly lays out complicated morphological systems in a way that makes sense to me. And, the short histories of the various languages are fascinating, as well. But, these thumbnails go into fairly good detail. For instance, they include influences from other languages, the probable evolution of the language, as well as the geographical history of the language. Really, it’s completely captivating.
In short, Facts About The World’s Languages is a great book that will be the object of lust and envy of every conlanger who sees it on your shelf. Go buy one!

Not one of mine for a change, though.
Nope, this would be Faith In Fiction, which is a blog run by a fiction acquisitions editor at a Christian publishing house. He looks at the fiction publishing world from a view few of us get to see. And, he talks about good fiction, faith and how the two can work together. Really, it’s an interesting idea for a blog.
One of the things I found interesting was that Christian authors deal with all the same issues that non-religious authors do. You don’t get a “free pass” just because you’re writing faith-based work. Of course, I knew that, but I don’t think a lot of aspiring Christian writers think about that. Generally, I get the impression that they think the message should be enough and editors should work out all that details, like grammar and spelling. And plot and characterization. You get the idea. So, it’s refreshing to see someone encouraging Christian writers to write, but to write good fiction, not just anything. I’m sure part of the idea is to cultivate a decent source of publishable talent, but I still like the idea of targeting that particular audience. Hmm, maybe I’ll even try writing for that market segment.

I know, you’re thinking, who?
Well, Robert W. Service is the poet who wrote “The Cremation of Sam Mcgee”. Still in the dark? That’s okay. I don’t think that Mr. Service is too well known anymore. I know him because of my father. Apparently, when my father was growing up one of the things that kids in school did was memorize and recite poetry. It was a competition along the lines of a spelling bee, from what he described. In any case, the poem that he memorized was, of course, “The Cremation of Sam Mcgee”. It’s a gruesome little tale about a man keeping his promise to a dying friend. A promise to cremate his remains in the frozen Yukon, in Winter, during the Gold Rush. Here’s a sample:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

You can see how that might grab a young man’s attention, eh? Especially, when his father introduces him to it. Well, if you click on the link, you can read the rest for yourself. I think it’s worth it.

Not my usual fare.
I finished On Death and Dying by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross last night. It is NOT my usual fare, nor am I dying. But, with the divorce, a part of my life is dying so my father suggested that I might find some benefit from reading it. And, since my father was involved with some of the base research for the book, I gave it a go. It was, at times, quite hard to read. Not because it was a bad book by any means, but because I’m just too keyed up to read much non-fiction. In fact, it was helpful and would be very helpful to someone dealing with an actual death. It details, among other things, the five stages of death and dying, or grief, namely; denial, anger, bargaining, sadness and acceptance. They’re not always followed in strict order and the tend to overlap quite a bit, but sooner or later, we all go through those five stages. (Personally, I’m in the anger stage, but I’m trying to get past that now.)

So, all in all, not a bad book, but not a good choice for me right now, either.
You can see more of what I’ve been up to while making myself read this book at my other blog: Diary of a Network Geek.

This is a very cool website.
In the Hall of Mountain Kings, that is. It’s an inside look at a sumo stable and the life of the sumotori who live there. It’s written in a very comfortable style and is a great way to look at sumo, not to mention Japanese culture in general.
I haven’t watched sumo in a very long time, but there should be a basho coming up soon. Maybe I can catch it on ESPN2. If not, I’ll just have to read In the Hall of Mountain Kings and dream of watching sumo in person.

Ah, well, it’s Friday and I did a bunch of work last night, so, humor me and click on the link and check it out.

The male version of the “bodice ripper”.

Let me preface this review with the simple statement that this is: a) Not the kind of book I usually read, b) There is almost nothing about real “bushido” in the book, and c) Was purchased at a used book store for less than a dollar. Okay, I admit that I was looking for something different, and not too challenging to read, but I was hoping for more.
I finished Code of Bushido by Don Pendelton this week. This is from a series of “men’s fiction” (no, that’s not a euphemism for pornography!) called SuperBolan, which is named after the main character, Mack Bolan. It’s about as low-brow as you can get and still be reading books that don’t have illustrations.
The characterisation is weak and the rest of the writing is worse. Everyone is a giant characature of actual characters. Mack Bolan is a stereotypical, steely-eyed, tough-guy fighting a shadow war against terrorists for the CIA. He’s the ultimate dark hero. A professional killer who’s out there killing the bad guys and keeping America safe. Yes, it’s really that heavy-handed.

But, setting all that aside. It was entertaining. Entertaining in the same way that, say, a Sylvester Stalone movie is. Lots of action, a little mostly bad dialog and not much else. But, I didn’t have to think about it. It was what it was. There wasn’t any really deep social message here, just action and lots of it. So, it was an oddly soothing change of pace for me. The only really annoying thing was the totally wrong presentation of bushido and traditional Japanese culture. This author has obviously never read anything about bushido, or any of the traditional martial arts, or even talked to anyone with more than a passing interest in Japanese culture.
So, while I can’t reccomend this book in all good conscience, if you’re in the mood for mindless mayhem and a break from anything too heavy, this might just get the job done.

But, to counter the “low-brow-ness” of Code of Bushido, I started reading The Science of Words. Nothing like some good linguistics to wash the filth off!