wisb-Guardian-Express

Yes, I have become an emo poet.  Whatever.  Personal bullshit compels me to write things that reflect the confusion crap going on in my head, even if said poems don't make sense.

Do with this what you will...

Here goes:

Quiet chambers
dead in night
blank, empty of voices:
Dead!
Dead inside.
A rustling -- rodent,
scourge of the earth.
Black pierced by sword eyes.
Piercing.
Piercing souls, life itself.

Empty.  Numb.
Numb like the corpses,
the mother who loses everyone to a war.
Empty.
Death streaking on the walls of hearts.
The pieces broken,
the puzzle collapsed by moisture.
Quiet chambers where day and night are suspended by nothing.

I don't feel like prefacing this with a grand explanation.  I'm having a shit day.

So here's a poem I wrote for NaPo.  That is all:

A chickadee fee-bees
into the monstrous
sea-green sleeves
reaching up for the sun:
a photosynthesis love song.
But no voices hear him,
for the grasslands are barren.

His voice cries out regardless --
fee-bee fee-bee tsit tsit --
hoping that the low-flying wind
slapping the ingers together
will carry his voice
to verdant lands --
tseedleedeet chicka-dee-dee-dee --
where new feathers perform their own journeys.
To no avail -- they dream
for something else
than what their lands can provide.
That hope sustains his voice
like a honey drizzle
on the vocal chords --
fee-bee fee-bee.

But there are no verdan fields
and no lonely ones peering out
                       for him.
He whistles his song
until he can no more,
until his throad cracks blood,
his chest burning, ashen,
no longer supporting
the moss-tinged air.

Who will hear his voice
when he no longer
sends it out on winds
twirling with life?
Or does he sing anything at all
if there is nobody around
              to hear him,
like the fable of the tree.

The chickadee lies down in the grass,
unable, unwilling to speak,
silenced by ghosts
of unfulfilled promises.

Fantasy Book Cafe has been releasing some fascinating articles in celebration of its "Women in SF/F" month (thing, event?).  One such article by the always-compelling N. K. Jemisin, entitled "Don't Fear the Unicorn," concerns Jemisin's personal struggle with the culturally-imposed gender paradigms in genre fiction.  Specifically, girly unicorns of girly-ness on the cover of Steven R. Boyett's Ariel.  I recommend you read the entire article, but for the sake of context, here's a juicy quote:

So I wasn’t going to pick up Ariel because OMG unicorn no. But there was something else on the cover of that book next to the unicorn: a boy. 

I remember staring at that book for several seconds of full, total “does not compute” shutdown. My brain just couldn’t handle the paradox. Unicorns equalled girliness. Boys, however, signalled action and adventure and toughness and purpose. Boys don’t do unicorns. Girliness =/= purpose. Danger, Will Robinson, danger. 

Then I clearly remember thinking, but I’m a girl. 

And that was it. It wasn’t an especially shocking realization, but it was a profound one. In that moment I began to understand: the problem wasn’t that some books were infested with girl cooties; the real problem was my irrational fear of girliness. And myself.

Hopefully that explains why the title of this post involves the willing emasculation of my male self  both by unicorn riding and cross-dressing.  Not that I would ever do either (we live in the real world, folks, so this whole cross-dressing unicorn rider of doom nonsense is just a fantasy I will never see fulfilled).

But the point is that I too find these paradigms rather disconcerting, except in retrospect.  While Jemisin seems to have discovered the idiocy of the girl/boy split and the wickedness of girl cooties at a young age, I didn't discover such a thing until maybe my early twenties.  I blame part of that on the culture around me, wherein being an RPG-playing, video-game-loving, Magic-the-Gathering-obsessed super geek (we drank Citra by the box -- you remember Citra, right?) constituted some kind of penis-wearing female surrogate monster (like an android without genitalia, or, maybe, with male genitalia, since we menfolk have this odd obsession with feeling inadequate to the task of "mating").  Growing up, then, put me in a bizarre position of trying to pretend that I was "man enough" to be considered a "man" (or young man, depending on my age), thereby legitimizing my hard rejection of anything associated with the female species (even when such things are, in fact, gender neutral -- dancing, for example, is only "girly" because men are too damned stupid to realize that most forms of dancing don't actually work without a partner; partners could very well be of the same sex or either sex -- such is the silliness of girl cooties).

Today, I've thankfully set a lot of this crap aside.  Perhaps it has something to do with recognizing (and learning) patriarchy in our culture.  Perhaps it has something to do with a desire to access "girly things" because I happen to like them (hey, a good romance is, well, good, and I'm going to cry at the end of a tragedy or whatever because it's sad; so bite me).  It might also have something to do with my semi-bi-sexual-ness (yeah, I'm admitting that in public on a blog; I'm as confused as you).

Whatever led me to this conclusion -- to the desire to ride a unicorn in the dress because I should be able to do so without getting ridiculed for being "a girl" (because it ain't a girl thing; it's a human thing) -- I am thankful to see people like Jemisin challenging the assumptions of gendered identity.  There's no such thing as a "domain of *insert sex here.*"  Women like sports; men like sports.  Men like cooking; women do too (and on that front, I have to ask:  has anyone else found it utterly absurd that the most sexist of us all can say "women belong in the kitchen" without recognizing the irony that some of the best cooks are men?  Some are women too, of course, but anyway...).

Jemisin, of course, is right.  We're all sexists.  We're raised in a sexist society.  And we should challenge those behaviors when we become aware of them, not because it will suddenly make us non-sexist, but because it will help us make a fairer world.  That applies to our reading practices.  If a book has a unicorn on it, give it a shot.  You never know.  It might be the most amazing book you've ever read.  But you'll never know if you don't pick up that book, look at the blurb, and give it a shot.

That's what I've got to say on that.  The comments are yours.

Today's NaPo poem was not actually inspired by the picture in this post.  Rather, it was inspired by some random thoughts I have about cats, which includes thinking of them as slave masters.  The poem isn't explicitly humorous, though.

In any case, here's the poem (feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts or a link to your own NaPo entry):

Bow before your master...

I don't feel like prefacing this with an explanation.  So I'm just going to get right to it:

I prepare myself to pack away my dreams
into the snowglobe of a lost memory.
Our fingers intertwined, like beds
of fallen leaves warming a frosty earth.
The little laughs shared in stone courtyards,
where too many feet have marched
to the sound of war drums --
our laughter replenishes the weary
souls trapped in a moment of history.

The way your eyes gleam when I kneel,

even though I always said I wouldn't
because it's too cliche and we should
strive to be something more than that.
But I couldn't help myself, the dreary
winter rain of England trapping moisture
in my cargo pants as the words slip from my tongue
and the oath slides into place.
The tears we share together that night
when your lips offer affirmations
and our nervous smiles betray our joy
to the voyeurs of the world.

The single joyous moment when you
cross the threshold on the arms of an angel;
I stand there, sweaty palms, my crazy
mother in the corner sobbing over a grin --
we both know she's lost her marbles
in all the right ways --
and words are exchanged under an arch
of artificial flowers -- because you're
allergic to the real deal and I
made the day just for you so you'd
always remember...

The first moment when your worried face
shows me the right colors/lines/truths
in the third plastic stick you've tried.
I hardly contain my excitement, like a
child getting the right toy at Christmas,
but always and forever, every day and thereafter,
and then I'm running across the parking lot,
screaming at anyone who will listen,
even if their faces betray my absurdity.
I sweep you up into my arms
with a thousand kisses and thank yous.
We were happy that day.

The birth, the growth, and the sudden
realization that there are so many
things nobody ever told us about
anything we should have learned
about when we were younger.
There are fights and bitter remarks,
pain and tears and too much food
in places it's not supposed to end up...
But at night we read little stories --
I do all the voices, and you try not
to laugh at how ridiculous I sound --
and battle the wits of the young
in the grand game of sleep politics.
We soldier through, because the little troopers
with unusual names we've concucted
in the imagination of love
need us as much as we need them.
We remind ourselves that we can handle it.
Our mothers remind us that they'll
gladly donate their services.

The little hand of a raggedy boy
squeezing the life out of too
many imaginary demons in the woods out back.
Somewhere his sister plays with her dolls,
or maybe she's squeezing imaginary demons too,
perhaps in solidarity or because she's
too much like her monther when she was young.
He's a right pain in the ass --
so much like his father (or mother, or both) --
and she's a royal princess
who isn't sure she wants to be a princess at all.
But we make do, because there's something
about this journey that reminds us
we've still got a long way to go
before we reach whatever great epiphany
awaits the end...

The demon-smashing boy brings his own
demon-smashers to the party, and before long
the demon-smashers are followed by more.
Whatever we think about the choices
the original demon-smashers made,
we're too happy to have more demon-smashers
in our little cottage in the country to care
-- or little house in the city,
depending on how our dreams turned out.
So our living room is filled with toys
and our guest bedrooms turn out to be
perfect havens for the new demon-smashers
to rest off their demon-furies.
We read them bedtime stories, too,
and tell their parents that we'd
happily donate our services.
The former-demon-smashers smile at us,
because they remember when they too
were fodder for the services of the elderly.

The first time you really realized
that we have grown far too old,
but that we're still just as happy
as we ever were, even with the wrinkles
and dwindling health.
We spend our days in the living room,
reading books, watching TV we don't understand,
remarking on how when we were younger
we never got into all that whatsamacallits
and some such whatever majigs.
The former-demon-smashers roll their eyes
when they're privvy to the conversation,
but sooner or latter, they'll get it too.

Somewhere in all of this, you'll own
that little bookshop I told you about
when I made up that ridiculous story.
Tinkers and Pages Magical Emporium of Tinker Toys and Books:
you'll call it that because I came up
with the name in a fit of imagination,
and you can't help yourself, after all.
We'll throw our life savings into it
because it's what we want to do with
the rest of our long, beautiful lives.
We'll be giants in our own little world,
so sure that the trees beneath our feet
won't prick us into submission.

All these thoughts, like sunbursts of color
spreading outward into a fan of possibilities,
slip down from the tip of a wand
into my own little pensieve,
the wizard love song that was always ours
dwindling away in the background
where the shadows encroach --
shadows of what used to be,
of the demon-smashers and their adorable grins...
In the snowglobe, I see the futures
we might have had lying in wait,
perhaps to be drawn out again,
or deferred for another day.
But whatever days are lost in the memory of you,
I'll hold the snowglobe in my pocket,
a bookmark for one moment of wonder.

Hooray for poems about birds!  Nature rocks.

Today's poem was inspired by the following:

The warbling Northern Mockingbird
chirps a stranger's tune,
acid words spilling from his beak:
"HUMAN...Human...human...safe!"

Others announce my arrival in turn,
turning their beaks to the side
so their blackberry eyes
can see the world beneath their wings.
"human...Human...HUMAN!"
I watch them, curious at their undying attention,
like the reverse end of a lover's coin.
"Human...human...safe!"

Who am I to these air sirens?
Who do I become in their eyes?
"Move away...Move away...Move away now..."
There, the mother hen clucking her little orders;
There, the little whisper of the Earth mother
serenading the world with wild harmonies.
"human...Human...HUMAN!"

I look in their beads of ethereal visions
and see myself reflected as if by an ocean.
"Human...human...safe!"
And in that moment, I see myself,
the bird man waiting to fly
on skies of upturned buckets,
toes wriggling in the fog where feathers play.

Ticonderoga Publications is currently reading for an anthology called Dreaming of Djinn.  All well and good, right?  Things get rather strange, however, when you read the description:

This anthology, with the working title Dreaming of Djinn, will look at romantic Orientalism through a speculative fiction lens. You might find lost cities, magical lamps, mummies, thieves, intrepid explorers, slaves, robotic horsemen, noble queens, sorcerers, outcast princes, harems, dancers, djinn, assassins and even smart-talking camels and cats, set in exotic Persia, Egypt, Arabia, the Ottoman Empire, or a modern incarnation of these.

Oh boy, here we go!

The Middle East isn't exotic.  The oceans of Europa are exotic, because fuck-all lives there; if you stuck someone in them, I suspect their first reaction would be "Holy shit, I'm miles under ice in an ocean on another planet."  Hell, even the oceans on Earth are exotic for the same reason ("Holy
shit, I'm inside a submarine in the Marianas Trench!").  People live in the Middle East, that oh-so-exotic place with all the different countries and peoples and histories (it's a country like Africa, right?  Right?  Ha!).  I know, that's shocking, right?  Maybe I should say "people."  That's better.  That way you can question whether they are people, since they're all exotic and whatever.

Unless, of course, if you take your head out of your ass and you realize that, hey, people from the Middle East live in this country, and other Western countries, and many of them have kids, so to say "oh, hey, those weird people from Persia are exotic weirdos" is sort of like saying "My left arm is strange, but my right one is el normal!"  And that's really the problem.  Are there "exotic" cultures on this planet?  I don't know.  I don't know about all the cultures on this planet.  I'm sure there are cultures that seem strange to me, but I'm in tune with my own reality enough to know that that opinion is not relevant because it is subjective.  Other cultures are exotic because they are not my own culture.

And this is really the problem of Orientalism as Edward Said articulated it, and as so many academics and non-academics alike now understand it.  The moment we start producing these binaries, in which one culture is "normal" and the other is "exotic" (read:  savage, wrong, not-us, etc.), then we are engaging in orientalist behavior.  That the editors used Orientalism in the description without noting this profound irony is disconcerting.

I'm sure they mean well, and that what they really want is to find are stories which show pulpy adventures taking place in the Middle East and other places once identified as part of "the Orient."  There's nothing wrong with that; it's even a pretty good idea.  But I certainly hope they think through the implications of their call for stories, or they might end up with an actual anthology of Orientalist Romances, chock full of racism, ethnocentric stereotypes, and so on.  Something like this:
Anywho...


What does everyone else think about this?

Anyone who attends conferences (academic or otherwise) knows there are three kinds of annoying people who attend:

1. People who run way overtime.
2. People who do not come prepared to give a talk.
3. People who don't actually ask a question during the Q&A.

No need to explain the inspiration for this one.  It's self-evident.

I know what you might be saying.  "Another love poem?  When did you become such a sop?"  One might answer "when he got a girlfriend," but that wouldn't really account for it.  I'm simply a hopeless romantic at heart, and so I write these little poems, bad as some of them are, as expressions of that silly habit.

Do with that information what you will.  (Yes, I am four poems behind now.  So sue me...)

Here goes:

For you I give my lion's roar
until the mountains quiver
in their foundations
and beg for mercy.
Only you can give it to them
with your milk honey touch.

For you I raze cities and continents
so that they might know what it is
to be willing to sacrifice worlds
for another.

For you I pluck the moon and the stars
from the sky
with sad little fingers
until skin burns to ashes
and the atoms split.

For you I tell great fictions,
for there is no other way
to express the inexpressible
except to indulge in fibs
and drudge up centuries of falsehoods
trapped in men's hearts.

For you there is no end to that journey,
to the day-by-day expressions
which threaten to terrify mountains
and destroy continents
and split atoms.

For you I give these little things
as proof for a theory with no answers.

Why is the epicenter of the magical disaster in INDIGO SPRINGS and BLUE MAGIC physically located in Oregon? Why did I pick the Beaver State as the setting for my fictional town?

I get asked this quite often, especially when I go to Portland. (At home, I sometimes get asked, "Why not Vancouver?")

I had a handful of reasons:

I wanted to choose somewhere in the U.S.:
The same magical spill, in Canada, would be handled differently. America has a more effective military infrastructure, an aggressive approach to dealing with emergencies, and enough resources and power to tell a worried world to butt out when it has problems. Canada, faced with
the same crisis, would probably be obliged, quite quickly, to accept a lot of international aid . . . some of it, perhaps, heavily armed.

I wanted the landscape of the Pacific Northwest:
The environment plays a big role in both INDIGO SPRINGS and BLUE MAGIC; Albert Lethewood is a gardener, and the gardens of Indigo Springs are Cascadia gardens: bulb flowers in the spring, rhododendrons and azalea and hydrangea and roses. The enchanted, contaminated forest that grows up around the town of Indigo Springs is a West Coast rain forest. Its giant cedars are bound together by runaway ivy vines and populated by overgrown, magically altered Stellar's jays, pileated woodpeckers, raccoons, squirrels, skunks and orb weaver spiders, all the species that I see every day in the local woods.

I wanted the action to be near Mount Saint Helens: I'm realizing lately that I'm something of a volcano freak. I love the triangular cones of Mounts Baker, Hood, and Rainier. I'm astounded and awed by the remains of Saint Helens. I've seen Vesuvius and Mount Etna and Santorini. The only really compelling reason I can think of to go to Hawaii is to go to Volcano National Park.
In terms of practical story reasons, volcanos and geothermal power offer a ready source of energy for the books' well-wizards, and the intermingled threat and possibility represented by Mount Saint Helens is important. It broods in the background of the novel, literally threatening to blow whenever the wizards draw too much power.

I love Portland, so why not blast the hell out of it?
In fiction, at least, I really do hurt the things I love. I visit Portland once a year, for Orycon, and it's a great city. I know lots of people there and I like the overall vibe: it feels like one of the few places I've been that could become home, if one could just hop over an international border and relocate easily. I love Powells Bookstore (who doesn't love Powells?) and the coffee shops and the parks and the weather and all my friends there are wonderful.

Putting the far edge of the magical disaster within spitting distance of Portland--having Portland be the frontline of the effort to contain the contaminated forest--appealed to me somehow.

When the people in my own backyard ask "Why Portland? Why not Vancouver?" I like to tell them that I wanted to leave myself room for the damage to spread out in BLUE MAGIC. And it does--one storyline plays out at a decommissioned air force base on the Nevada/Utah border (Wendover, which is the base the atomic bomb missions originated) and there are scenes in Tuscany, the Sahara desert, Atlanta, and the enormous toystore in New York City, FAO Schwarz, and Assateague Island Park National Seashore.

While the story begins with four people in the basement of an old house in a fictional Oregon town, trying desperately to contain a magical spill, it reaches a lot further as the enchantment and its effects continue to spread. But Oregon is still the starting point; by the time BLUE MAGIC ends, it's certainly the most magic-drenched place on earth.

Since what I've seen of Oregon and its people is downright enchanting, that seems entirely appropriate.


Alyx Dellamonica’s new book, Blue Magic, the sequel to the critically-acclaimed, Sunburst Award–winning contemporary fantasy debut, Indigo Springs, goes on sale this Tuesday, April 10th!

This powerful sequel starts in the small town in Oregon where Astrid Lethewood discovered an underground river of blue liquid—Vitagua—that is pure magic. Everything it touches is changed. The secret is out—and the world will never be the same. Astrid’s best friend, Sahara, has been corrupted by the blue magic, and now leads a cult that seeks to rule the world. Astrid, on the other hand, tries to heal the world.

Conflicting ambitions, star-crossed lovers, and those who fear and hate magic combine in a terrible conflagration, pitting friend against friend, magic against magic, and the power of nations against a small band of zealots, with the fate of the world at stake. Blue Magic is a powerful story of private lives changed by earthshaking events that will ensnare readers in its poignant tale of a world touched by magic and plagued by its consequences.

Today's poem is all rhyme-y.  Why?  Because Adam Callaway keeps asking me to do them.  That's not the real reason, though.  I just felt like it today.

It also helps that my poem was inspired by this:

"What's that?" you say.  You'll just have to read the poem to figure it out.  It should be pretty obvious.

Here goes:



Sweet is Lilium, whose sunset shimmer
quiets a man's stuttering wayward pipe --
his solemn songs rendered to joyous glimmer --
in the quickened chest of an overripe

soul cast in the dye inflamed with yearning.
Her quiet limbs caress the trembling air
and his fingers shiver as the sojourning
question paddles circles; a doe's learning
sprouts, gale-wind globes searching to tear

the foundation of doubt from its mooring;
For she draws the melted candle, as Orpheus
mastered Elysium and broke Amore, singing
of Eurydice; her instrument a truss

for his warbling tune, waiting at the gate
to lull Cerberus to the Land of Dreams;
In whose milken hands he rests his fate
and whispers vows -- humbled, joyed by the streams
of Euphrosyne's tears; in whose cheeks shined
Dog-Star twilight and, in Eros, a love enshrined.

For a love that refashions a stubbed taper
and lights a thousand harmonious Orphean tales
smolders love-lost terrors to scorched-earth paper;
and from Heliopolis and ashes, new love prevails.

A few folks have raised some interesting questions/ideas over on my post about the nominees for the Hugo Awards.  I suspect I will explore these topics again in the future.  The one thing I did want to remedy about my comments is my dismissive nature of the fanzines.  It seems rather silly of me to dismiss fanzines simply because nobody I know is talking about them, etc..  I rarely do that for any other category, so why should I do it with fanzines?

Today's poem was inspired by The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister.  When I say inspired, I don't necessarily mean "inspired by the story," though one could certainly make the argument that my cursory knowledge of this rather famous children's book did influence the writing of the poem below.  It'll be interesting to hear what people think of what I've written...

For the record:  I am behind by three poems.  No idea if I'll catch up...

Here goes:

There are no scales covering the skin
of the god fish who floats downriver
in a cup of his own making.

His tail -- a mangled twitching
against the banshee howl
of the wind turned hypersonic
on its journey through the
crags of a forgotten canyon.

His mind -- a quiet confusion,
the pine-salt air in his lungs
sustaining a body yet yearning
for the deep solitude of water.

Ah, but a solitude in the company
of a community of confused beasts,
whose shimmer-scales and whistling-furs
remind the god fish of the days
when he was master over all
and his scales were quiet flashes
in the honey flow of the Sun.

The frayed snap-twig in fin,
he rows towards the light --
the candles of evening whisper,
saying his name as the wind
carries the dreams of ghosts.

And in his dreams -- a screech,
the falcon's jealous feather-gaze
upon the multicolored shimmy shimmer
of the god fish's many scales;
the grumble of the earth beasts,
the tinfoil call of scaly walkers,
the scruffy scrabble of the whispering ones
and so many voices so the earth
at once knows only one name:
the god fish! the god fish!

In the cup of his own making,
his tears turn sour on bare flesh,
glittering with dream stuff
like echoes of faces in still water:
hands and claws and talons ripping,
pulling like unkempt wolf children
at the multitude of magnified markers
which the god fish dispells in salt.

Oh, but the worst dream of all --
the little cousins and sisters
and brothers and friends
who once knew the god fish
by the smiles that graced their faces...
Their bodies are now home
to someone else's skin.

Up the river, pushing weak currents,
the god fish holds his tongue
against the roof of a mouth
made sticky by too much trauma.
Against the wet sting of his wounds
his grief finds its voice in his silence.

Time for another poem for NaPo.  A good poem?  No.  But Adam wanted me to write something with rhymes, and so I did so while watching a strange argument at Taco Bell.  It should be clear from the poem what I thought of that argument (or I hope so, at least).

Here you go:

The handiwork of a few tall men
determines the flow of the streams
upon which the nation boat sends
its shadows of little folk dreams.

The image of a scrimmage of beasts
cackling over stories in need of context
without which the watcher's eyes only feast,
wondering on whose back the Truth next

speaks its heart murmur songs
and communicates the fate of small souls
whose narratives are but empty among the throngs
of gestures; a hint of dejection lulls

where rejection molds a whiplash injection
upon the neck of the story-less employee
who is tossed away before the public perception
can broadcast the past
through distance and glass
and claim for the watcher --
whose wandering eyes a lecher --
the nature of Truth's jubilee...

Last year, I ranted about the Hugo Awards (here and here) after they were announced.  This year, I'm switching things up to offer some preliminary thoughts before they are announced, and after.  If you'd like to put me in my place, the comments are yours.  These are preliminary thoughts, so I expect to be proven wrong on many counts.

(Note:  Some categories will get a slight pass, as I don't want to comment too much about areas about which I have little reading experience.  I will make guesses about winners based solely on what information I have in my arsenal, which means that most of my guesses are not educated whatsoever.)

Here goes:


Best Novel
Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)
A Dance With Dragons, George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra)
Deadline, Mira Grant (Orbit)
Embassytown, China Miéville (Macmillan / Del Rey)
Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey (Orbit)

I'm not terribly disappointed in these choices.  One of my professors has told me that Among Others is brilliant, and I've had a love affair with Mieville for a while now.  Martin is an obvious choice, what with his enormous fanbase.  I don't know enough about James S. A. Corey or Leviathan Wakes to offer any opinions whatsoever, though one of my friends liked the book enough to give me a copy, so I suspect it's not bad.  The Grant, sadly, doesn't interest me at all, but if someone wants to send me both books in that series to prove me wrong, go for it.

I would have preferred to see Of Bloody and Honey by Stina Leicht and Osama by Lavie Tidhar here, but that might be asking too much.  I am sad that no small press titles are on this list, though.

Overall feeling:  *un-enthused, slightly disappointed shrug*
Who will win?  Mieville

Best Novella
Countdown, Mira Grant (Orbit)
“The Ice Owl”, Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)
“Kiss Me Twice”, Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s)
“The Man Who Bridged the Mist”, Kij Johnson (Asimov’s)
“The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary”, Ken Liu (Panverse 3)
Silently and Very Fast, Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA)
Note: 6 nominees due to tie for final position.

Some of the same names again.  This could be a good thing, or it could be bad.  I am pleased to see Ken Liu on the list, though.  I've talked with him on Google+ and he seems like a nice guy.  But the Novella category is always one of those "hey, I haven't read enough" categories.

Overall feeling:  *okay*
Who will win?  Kowal

Best Novelette
“The Copenhagen Interpretation”, Paul Cornell (Asimov’s)
“Fields of Gold”, Rachel Swirsky (Eclipse Four)
“Ray of Light”, Brad R. Torgersen (Analog)
“Six Months, Three Days”, Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com)
“What We Found”, Geoff Ryman (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)

Geoff Ryman is a genius.  Swirsky is pretty damned good too.  Haven't read the others.  That is all.

Overall feeling:  *hmm, interesting*
Who will win?  Swirsky

Best Short Story
“The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees”, E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld)
“The Homecoming”, Mike Resnick (Asimov’s)
“Movement”, Nancy Fulda (Asimov’s)
“The Paper Menagerie”, Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)
“Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book One: The Dead City: Prologue”, John Scalzi (Tor.com)

Oh, hey, look, the same magazines over and over.  No Interzone selections?  No Weird Tales?  No *insert one of the dozen other pro and semi-pro mags with great stories in them here*?

But the crown jewel of utter stupidity here is Scalzi's April Fool's joke.  Yeah, that story was written for April Fool's Day last year.  Not serious.  If anything could destroy the credibility of this award, it is that fact.  Don't get me wrong.  I like Scalzi.  He's even a pretty good writer.  But this is a new low for the Hugos.  I will refer to them as the Joke Hugos from now on.

Overall feeling:  *annoyed*
Who will win?  Scalzi (because that would make the Joke Hugos perfectly Jokey, no?)

Best Related Work
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition, edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls, and Graham Sleight (Gollancz)
Jar Jar Binks Must Die…and other Observations about Science Fiction Movies, Daniel M. Kimmel (Fantastic Books)
The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature, Jeff VanderMeer and S. J. Chambers (Abrams Image)
Wicked Girls (CD), Seanan McGuire
Writing Excuses, Season 6 (podcast series), Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Jordan Sanderson

You know what?  There are some good choices here.  I suspect ESF (Clute) will take it, but I wouldn't ignore The Steampunk Bible (I would marry VanderMeer's editing side) or Writing Excuses here (a great podcast).  I don't know much about the Kimmel, but it seems like an interesting book.  Award-worthy?  No idea.

Overall feeling:  *okay*
Who will win?  Clute (too perfectly historical for its own good)

Best Graphic Story
Digger, by Ursula Vernon (Sofawolf Press)
Fables Vol 15: Rose Red, by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham (Vertigo)
Locke & Key Volume 4: Keys To The Kingdom, written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
Schlock Mercenary: Force Multiplication, written and illustrated by Howard Tayler, colors by Travis Walton (The Tayler Corporation)
The Unwritten (Volume 4): Leviathan, created by Mike Carey and Peter Gross, written by Mike Carey, illustrated by Peter Gross (Vertigo)

You know what?  I have no idea.  I don't read graphic novels.  So I'll let the folks in the comments handle this one.

Overall feeling:  *umm, what?*
Who will win?  No idea.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Captain America: The First Avenger, screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephan McFeely; directed by Joe Johnston (Marvel)
Game of Thrones (Season 1), created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss;
written by David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson, and George R. R. Martin; directed by Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Tim van Patten, and Alan Taylor (HBO)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, screenplay by Steve Kloves; directed by David Yates (Warner Bros.)
Hugo, screenplay by John Logan; directed by Martin Scorsese (Paramount)
Source Code, screenplay by Ben Ripley; directed by Duncan Jones (Vendome Pictures)

Umm, Game of Thrones is a television series.  Yes, it's all part of one long narrative, but it is not a "Long Form Dramatic Presentation."  So it doesn't belong here.  Someone in admin needs to make a correction ASAP.

As for the rest:  Some decent films.  Captain America was okay, but I wouldn't give it an award.  I haven't seen Source Code, though I'm told it's pretty good.  HP7P2 was also pretty good, and might have won this if not for the ten-ton elephant in the room:  Hugo.  If Hugo does not win, then the Joke Hugos will receive more Jokey points.

Overall feeling:  *approval (almost)*
Who will win?  Hugo (or I will kill someone)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
Doctor Who, ”The Doctor’s Wife”, written by Neil Gaiman; directed by Richard Clark (BBC Wales)
“The Drink Tank’s Hugo Acceptance Speech”, Christopher J Garcia and James Bacon (Renovation)
Doctor Who, ”The Girl Who Waited”, written by Tom MacRae; directed by Nick Hurran (BBC Wales)
Doctor Who, ”A Good Man Goes to War”, written by Steven Moffat; directed by Peter Hoar (BBC Wales)
Community, ”Remedial Chaos Theory”, written by Dan Harmon and Chris McKenna; directed by Jeff Melman (NBC)

I've not seen Community, so I can't comment on it.  The only Doctor Who episode worth its salt here is "The Girl Who Waited."  The others were essentially 2-3 episode arcs shoved into 45 minutes.  The Gaiman episode should have been split into two, because there is far too much awesome going on there to justify a 45 minute presentation.  "A Good Man Goes to War" suffers from one of the most ridiculous plot points I've seen in a long time:  namely, magically discovering that your good friend, River Song, is actually Amy and Rory's kidnapped baby, and suddenly not giving a shit that your baby was kidnapped.  What?  My mother is a recovering alcoholic and she'd probably destroy half the planet to find me if I was kidnapped by an evil brainwashing organization...  Calling B.S. here.

But then the Joke Hugos put on the Super Jokey Mask with the inclusion of Garcia's Hugo speech last year. Wait, what?  Correct me if I'm mistaken, but his speech was not part of a performance; it was genuine.  I would personally be quite offended if my emotional response to receiving recognition from my peers was reduced to a performance.  And even if that weren't the problem, this is again a new low for the Joke Hugos.  I suppose we should just hand out Joke Hugos for any public display of emotion.  When I'm at a convention in the next few years, please remember this, because I'm going to have an emotional breakdown in front of everyone, and I expect to win a Joke Hugo for my effort.

Overall feeling:  *bitter meh*
Who will win?  Gaiman

Best Semiprozine
Apex Magazine, edited by Catherynne M. Valente, Lynne M. Thomas, and Jason Sizemore
Interzone, edited by Andy Cox
Lightspeed, edited by John Joseph Adams
Locus, edited by Liza Groen Trombi, Kirsten Gong-Wong, et al.
New York Review of Science Fiction, edited by David G. Hartwell, Kevin J. Maroney, Kris Dikeman, and Avram Grumer

Yup.  Lots of tasty here.  Some are obvious, of course, but I can't say I would complain if one of these won.  Granted, I think Interzone deserves the award, but that's me.

Overall feeling:  *yes*
Who will win?  JJA

Best Fanzine
Banana Wings, edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
The Drink Tank, edited by James Bacon and Christopher J Garcia
File 770, edited by Mike Glyer
Journey Planet, edited by James Bacon, Christopher J Garcia, et al.
SF Signal, edited by John DeNardo

The same problem as last year:  a bunch of fanzines I've only become familiar with because of the awards because they almost never appear in the hundreds of discussions going on in the community around me.  Except SF Signal, of course, which I hope will pick up the award.  I don't care about "proper fanzine" arguments.  SF Signal is good and it isn't lost in the background.  People know about it.  People read it.  People comment on it.  And people talk about it.  That's good enough for me.

Overall feeling:  *eh, with a side of hmm*
Who will win?  SF Signal

Best Fancast
The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan & Gary K. Wolfe
Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alex Pierce, and Tansy Rayner Roberts (presenters) and Andrew Finch (producer)
SF Signal Podcast, John DeNardo and JP Frantz (presenters), Patrick Hester (producer)
SF Squeecast, Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, and Catherynne M. Valente
StarShipSofa, Tony C. Smith

StarShipSofa is not a fancast.  It is an audio fiction magazine like EscapePod, etc.  It does not produce fan content.  It produces magazine content.  Stop putting it alongside podcasts which actually produce fan content...

As for the rest:  some good choices, some meh choices, and some choices that make me wonder whether quality is on the mind of the community.  I am still surprised that The Agony Column never makes the list, since it is one of the few podcasts out there that actually takes its interviews seriously (i.e., the interviewer actually reads the book, or tries, or at least reads the cover blurb).

I'm happy the category exists, though, and I suppose I will give some podcasts here a second chance.

Overall feeling:  *eh, whatever*
Who will win?  Coode Street (or I will break something*

Best Editor, Long Form
Lou Anders
Liz Gorinsky
Anne Lesley Groell
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Betsy Wollheim

What?  No Jason Williams/Jeremy Lassen or Nick Mamatas?  Expect me to be very disappointed, then.  And I don't mean to imply that Anders, Gorinsky or Hayden don't deserve to be up there.  They do.  I just think some new names need to make this list (or at least names that are up to new things).

Of course, Groell and Wollheim are up there, which makes me happy.

Overall feeling:  *eh*
Who will win?  Gorinsky (I'm not really sure; it's a tie with Groell...)

Best Editor, Short Form
John Joseph Adams
Neil Clarke
Stanley Schmidt
Jonathan Strahan
Sheila Williams

No surprises here.  Good editors all.  Schmidt probably should win just because he's never won, but I suspect Adams will steal the show, or Williams.  Who knows?

Overall feeling:  *okay*
Who will win?  JJA

Best Professional Artist
Dan dos Santos
Bob Eggleton
Michael Komarck
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio

It's a tie between Martiniere and Picacio for me, but I will, as always, lean towards the former because I love his work.  There are some great names here, of course, so I'm not disappointed in the slightest.

Overall feeling:  *smiles*
Who will win?  Picacio

Best Fan Artist
Brad W. Foster
Randall Munroe
Spring Schoenhuth
Maurine Starkey
Steve Stiles
Taral Wayne
Note: 6 nominees due to tie for final position.

I know nothing about these selections.  You all can argue about them in the comments.

Overall feeling:  *umm, what?*
Who will win?  No idea.

Best Fan Writer
James Bacon
Claire Brialey
Christopher J. Garcia
Jim C. Hines
Steven H Silver

The same names as before.  Except there is a new one here:  Jim C. Hines.  Can you guess who I hope will win?  If you guessed Hines, you are correct!  I think he contributes a lot of amazing thoughts to the community, even more so than Scalzi, who has been on this list before.  He certainly deserves to be there.  And he better win...

Overall feeling:  *eh, with a side of hmm*
Who will win?  Hines.

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
Mur Lafferty
Stina Leicht
Karen Lord
Brad R. Torgersen
E. Lily Yu

I'm not sure Lafferty counts as a new writer, unless by "new" we mean "new professionally published writer," which I'm not convinced she is either.  Not that I dislike Lafferty or anything; this is more me being confused.

But the list is otherwise damned good.  Stina Leicht!  Karen Lord!  Holy hell, they are amazing authors.  And that means I have a big problem:  who do I root for?  I want them both to win.  They're both great.  I can't choose.  Don't make me.  Please.  PLEASE.  GAH!

Overall feeling:  *super smile*
Who will win?  Leicht.  LORD!  LEICHT!  LORDDDDDD!  LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEICHT!  Shut up.  No.  Yes.

Both of you shut up...

The comments are yours.  Feel free to rip me a new one.

Technically this should have gone up yesterday, but I'm now two poem behind.  Haikus, here I come!

I don't think there was a single piece of inspiration for this piece.  It is political, which means that Adam Callaway should not read it.  It also has some bad language, which means anyone who is easily offended by slurs and the like shouldn't read past this sentence.  Hopefully my intent will become clear in the reading.

Here goes:

No idea who took/made this picture, but I would like to credit said person...

You should see yourself in the mirror
when you talk about your country.
Think of all the nasty things you say:
"We're a warmongering,
woman-hating,
minority-beating,
liberty-raping,
stinking center of rectal excretion
in the shape of a nation."

"If only things could be better," you say.
"But they're not." Only,
you never quite say it like that
(even though you do).

So your colleges no longer teach American history
(even though they do)
and you believe religious people
shouldn't be allowed in public
(even though you do).
You want Iran to win the war
(that isn't actually happening (yet)).
You want terrorists to eat our babies
and kill mothers with bombs made
with tiny nail factories inside
to usher in the age of blood-thirsty,
soul-crushing radical secularism
with a side of socialism...

If only you'd agree with those who love America
(who haven't read a proper history book
since high school (though you have))
and who believe the return of Christ
is just another way of saying "America is great,"
because the second coming will happen in Kansas...

Maybe you'd be a real American then...

Not that you know what any of that means.
After all, you say the Founding Fathers
were treacherous, slave-owning sexists
who saw God as a personal pursuit,
not a life to be lived in His light
and shoved into one's brain with an Acme Hammer
like Wiley Coyote and common sense.

"That's all, folks!" you say,
"No offense.  We're all on the same side.
We want the same thing."  Except you don't.

So, you heathenous,
religion-estroying,
baby-murdering,
freedom-raping,
children-brainwashing,
education-fucking,
socialist, fascist, communist
pigdog whore-basket fecal smear...
You waste the air we breathe
when you talk about a better future
and jobs
and rights for
niggers, chinks, towel-heads,
cholos, coolies, homos and
the little sex objects that
need to be at home tending to our needs...
You love the poor too much,
and your country too little.

If you only knew how un-American you are.
Maybe you might try to be a better person...

Folks following me on Twitter will know that I have been working on a short story entitled "Great is the History of the Many-Skilled Artistes" (a working title).  The story was inspired by one of my graduate school classes this semester.  I'm still working on it, and expect it to be completed next month (once finals are done and over with).

The following is the first of four sections in the story.  Do let me know what you think in the comments!

Here goes:

I.  Tears in the Womb of Unture
“Never trust the snake who wears another man’s clothes.
They are prone to theft and death follows them at the tail.”
--Avaganze Proverb, from The Thirty-third Book of Unturekamo, Date Unknown
 The man in the bowl hat wanted to eat their mythology, he said.  Nothing could have shocked the Avaganze more, since their mythology was everything to them.  They had cultivated it for generations, built their culture around it with stunning clarity.  They believed they were gifted by Unture, Queen of the Divine Realm, to live among the stars singular and alone. 

But then the bowl hat man had come, stepping huge footprints onto their tiny world, demanding a sacrifice like Unture herself.  But he was not Unture.  He could not be.  No.  Unture’s breasts hung low on her chest, because they were full of milk for the children of the universe, and her hips always swayed to an unknown rhythm in the sky.  And yet the bowler hat man had arrived and eaten away those few myths the Avaganze had let drift in the wind, including the divine nature of their existence.  Already, they were hurting. 

The bowl hat man smiled, licking his pearly teeth with a pink tongue glistening in the blazing afternoon sun.  His blue eyes struck dissonant notes in the air as he stared at the collective before him.  He dusted off his black waistcoat and the pleats of his black pants; he did not clean the tan-brown mess from his shoes, as if aware that to do so would be pointless.  His blonde hair fluttered in the wind, shining like gold beneath a brow drenched in sparkling sweat, jettisoning off a sagging frog chin.  His face bore the mark of a thousand ages, but the scars had long since healed, living his skin the color of lilies. 

He spoke again with his authoritarian voice, pulling from the gut and pushing tooth-filled words into the air, which swam down among the little people before him and nibbled at their heels:  “You will feed me your myths, or your children will have no history.” 

They were so much tinier than the bowl hat man, but only because he had consumed so much already.  His gut protruded from his fine clothes, exposing the hairy, jiggling blob beneath.  Yet his slovenly appearance gave way to gentility in the shiny bracelets and trinkets that adorned his neck, wrists, and belt.  

The little people gathered their strength, and finally Rohirre—which in the tongue of Avaganze meant “speaker of convincing words”—stepped forward. 

“How are you called?” he said, peering several feet up into the hungry eyes of the bowler hat man, who licked his lips and giggled from his belly.  A little butterfly fluttered from his belly button, nibbling at the air with its curled protrusion before dispersing in the wind as ashes. 

“Ah, so the Avaganze speak, with such fine, simple words.”  He sucked his teeth effect.  “You may call me Mogron.”  An audible hiss filled the air as the Avaganze reeled away.  “Yes, I like that name.  It rests well on the tongue, does it not?  Oh, and how strongly it translates.  ‘He Who Plagues Unture’s Feet.’  How wonderful you have become.  How creative!  Oh, I will feast well here.  I will feast well indeed.” 

“What compels Mogron to our shores?” 

Mogron bowed low, bringing his eyes level with Rohirre’s, some three feet from the ground; Rohirre was the tallest of his kind with a projecting voice—he had earned his name.  “I have come to eat.  Your mythology compels me.  It demands eating, for the many in the sky who I serve.” 

The Avaganze hissed again, some even cursing. 

Rohirre stiffened, his jaw set against emotion, but revealing the fear lingering in his heart.  “The Ongrorre sent you to us?” 

Mogron laughed.  His voice vibrated in the sand beneath his feet.  “Is that what you call the sky beings?  Dwellers in the City?  Oh, how fascinating!”  He licked his lips, tasting the air with a long, pink tongue covered in warts the size of Rohirre’s fingertips.  “I will eat well here.” 

“You will go now, Mogron.  You will go back to the Ongrorre and tell them that you may not eat here.” 

“And why would I do that, little one?” 

“Because the lands of the Avaganze are for the Avaganze, to be tilled by the Avaganze, to be the haven for the bodies of the Avaganze.  You are not Avaganze.  You are one of the Ongrorre.  Unture’s bane.  Unture’s torturer.  And you belong in Ongrorre.  Now go.”  

Rohirre lifted his chin, proud of his accomplishment, proud of waves of emotion emanating from the dozens of Avaganze standing behind him.  He did not glance back, but he could see them in the back of his mind holding hands tight, faces determined and strong.  Once more, he had fulfilled his namesake. 

Mogron brought himself to his full height, sucking in a deep breath.  And then he laughed, not unkindly.  His belly jiggled, the hairs standing on end with excitement.  The pearly whites in his mouth glistened with spittle as the roar of joy spilled from his gut, emitting serpentine wisps of air that slithered through the air and around the feet of the Avaganze. 

Then Mogron lifted his right arm, pointing a finger in such a way that only an elder would to a child, and in one great cry of pain, Rohirre disintegrated into dust.  Mogron sniffed Rohirre into his lungs, licking his tongue against his lips.  A chuckle built up in his gut.  The Avaganze cried in silence, too shocked to speak out against the great beast before them.  Tears fell from their dark faces, rolling down to their feet until the earth beneath them became mud. 

“Now you will bring me your stories.  For I am hungry.” 

Somewhere in the crowd the lone voice of a baby cried out.

And there you have it.

Today's entry is one of those personal entries -- at least, it's related in some way to personal nonsense.  Read at your own risk.  (Note:  I will probably have some political nonsense tomorrow.  Just a warning...)

Here goes:

A quiet gap builds between the royal pair,
a prince and a prince
with imaginary titles
in an imaginary place.
A chasm, a canyon rising from a deaf sea
swirling expired blue.
The waves churn circles,
the count of the clouds
like shadow men traipsing
by with hands kneading air.

The royal pair sense the earth-born rift
in the murmur of a heartbeat,
but the prince known it only
by the flashbang terror tightening titan fingers
over his heart.

How might he let her see the emptiness
between their dreams
if she marks her knowledge
with a cat-trapped tongue?

The prince grips the air and fights the canyon
with bulldozers of hope:
          No more canyons.
          No more searching through rubble.
          An end to something no romantic poet could ever expose en total.
These he hopes for,
reaches out his whithered garden hands
to the faint sunbeam of his other side,
pleads with eyes swimming with twisty birds
in a free sky chirping contentment.

But she cannot see,
for the haze draws over her vision,
clouding her beloved
so that what she sees
is only a shadow
of the man she loves(ed).

He waits for the every-wizard potion
to burn through the cavern
like carrion birds in a graveyard,
to fill it with liquid sun,
make a new world from the ashes.
And he hopes only for the strength to hold on
long enough to find the world he used to know.

Today's entry was inspired by this article.  Read it before or after if you so choose.

Now for the poem:

He dreamed about being a doctor --
or a writer, or an actor, or maybe something else --
does it matter what he dreams
as much as it matters that he dreams at all?
For is not the dream where all of us find
a better world?
The world we want to live in.
The world we wish could be real.

So he dreams that he might meet a man --
become a father, have a house, a career,
all the things the rest of us hope for --
and he's told by those whose mouths
are too big for their feet:
No! Never! Ever! Ever!

No...who would have thought two letters
could become the discourse of a nation?
To overshadow every other way
we can conceive of the future?
That two letters could destroy that same future,
like cannons against a matchstick wall...
That dreams could become the self-serving devices
of a dying empire...

Are his dreams empty gestures from a forlorn soul?
The candle-lit whispers flickering
in the drafty tomb of someone else's life?
Stolen by the specter of a gnarled tree yet to bloom...

The new religion:  a curled path up the mountain of man,
through the spider's den of glass spires.
To steal his dreams, to replace them
with the facsimile of a self.
Is it any wonder that his wrists turn into mouths,
speaking blood letters to the constricted face of the rope?

He dreams for the relief from the last breath
in a body wracked by doubt.
He dreams because
that is all he has left...

Unlike last year, I have been eagerly anticipating the second season of HBO's Game of Thrones.  Now that it's here, I have some of those same mixed feelings that made season one slightly uneven.  Yet, it doesn't seem to matter much anymore.  I will watch this show until the end, even if the characters turn into giant rabbits with swords.

The first episode of the second season is a transition episode.  It's one of those "hey, here's where we've been, and here's what everyone has been up to since we left."  That means, more or less, we're inundated with a lot of information, new characters, and so on, just so we'll get a sense of
what is to come.  After all, Eddard Stark is dead, and that means a hell of a lot of bad shit is coming our way.  What follows, as such, is a somewhat disjointed review.

In this episode, we are shown the following:  King Joffrey's continued psychological abuse of Sansa Stark; the arrival of Tyrion Lannister as the new Hand of the King (and the family politics involved); Bran Stark's reluctant position as Lord in his brother's stead; Danaerys' desperate attempts to save herself in an increasingly hostile wilderness; Robb Stark's continued rise to the mantle of King of the North; Stanis Baratheon's rejection of the old gods in the hope to steal back his throne from Joffrey; Jon Snow and gang beyond the wall; and Arya Stark's trek north.

If that sounds like a lot of stuff, then you understand my apprehension to call this episode anything but a confused mess.  GoT is still brilliant, mind, but there is something to be said about the writers biting off way too much in this episode.  Who exactly are we to care about here?  It's one thing to bring back some of our favorites, crammed together in one space, but to add new ones?  There's simply too much going on here.  Sadly, the overwhelming number of plotlines impacts the casting, as so many of the new additions get short thrift here.  Stanis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) spends most of his scenes glaring at the camera, looking altogether not like I expected him to look.  Davos Seaworth (Liam Cunningham) at least gets a few extra lines, with some emotion thrown in, but his character is as undeveloped as the rest of the newcomers (especially Maester Cressen, played by Oliver Ford Davies, who seems to come on the screen just so the writers can kill him off).  Simply put, the writers desperately need to break up these story lines to develop the characters more efficiently.

He's important.  Really.  He is.  Trust me...

That said, there is a lot to admire about the episode.  One of the most chilling moments in the entire series acts as the climax.  I won't ruin the moment, but you'll know it when you see it -- and you'll be as disturbed as I was.  What I can say is this:  it made me turn away from the screen, even though the act itself was never shown.  And it also shows us something we've known was coming for a while:  that the wicked really are wicked.

Additionally, HBO has done a fantastic job rendering the small cast of CG characters (in this case, one dragon).  The worst thing about TV is that networks make series which need a lot of CG, but they aren't willing to pay for quality material.  HBO didn't fall pray to that all-too-common weakness.  Instead, the creators have done what smart people do:  only use CG when absolutely necessary.  And that means that unlike most television, this show forces us to pay attention to characterization, which GoT usually does quite well.

Yes, I am God.  Hear me roar.

And then there's Peter Dinklage, who every single moment reminds us why he won an Emmy for his work on Season One.  What more can we say?  He's brilliant.  In some respects, he outshines everyone else who is made to work alongside him.  His expressions are nuanced in the way only a great actor can muster.  I hope we'll see more of him this season than last, but we'll see.

That pretty much sums up what I thought about this episode.  Future reviews will likely delve a little deeper into the story.  This review doesn't, in part because this episode is less a story than a giant placeholder.  Every major plot point opens up here, but there's not much that can be said about those various threads until we've seen where they are going.  That said, we're off to an interesting start, even if the first episode isn't the best of the lot.

Directing: 2.5/5
Cast: 4/5
Writing: 2.5/5
Visuals: 5/5
Adaptation: N/A (haven't read the book yet)
Overall: 3.5/5

Another entry?  Yup.  I'm taking this National Poetry Writing Month thing seriously.  This week's poem was inspired by a book by Jamaica Kincaid called A Small Place.  I recommend it to everyone; it's a biting critique of tourism in the Caribbean which draws upon, in my mind, the discourses of tourism (pamphlets, brochures, etc.).

Here's the image and poem:

To visit the island --
whose white sands shimmer beneath
the treasure hunter's sun --
is to forget the conquest.
The magazine-spread sands
pull the shadow of the damp-backed crab men
who rake the earth to keep up appearances.

Kincaid's oceans, impossibly blue,
impossibly anything but normal,
can be nothing more than simulacra,
imaginary ideas made real
so only their artificiality can be discerned.

Pull back the green screen to see the gears
manned by buffalo men with juvenile growths
squirming like maggots on their backs,
to entrap the long-haired baboons
with plump fingers prying and plying
the cottonswab sheets you cover in dead skin cells.

And then remind yourself that they are not
buffalo men, maggot growths, or hairy baboons,
but people trapped beneath a glass jar,
like creatures kept for a child's benefit...

And that it is only a black curtain that rests
between the prostitutes and the societies they serve.
To visit the island --
the curtain drawn back
to reveal the hunter's game --
is to remember a history not your own.

I'm playing catch-up again.  Way too much stuff has happened since the last time I posted a roundup.  Articles.  Episodes.  More articles.  More episodes.  Phew.

So here's a roundup of all that stuff.

First:

• Guest Post:  "Superhero Ethics" by Myke Cole
• Guest Post:  "Tackling Other Cultures in Fiction" by Stina Leicht
• Episode 94a:  An Interview w/ Stina Leicht (a.k.a. Mrs. Irish Cream)(On Urban Fantasy)
• Episode 93:  Defining Urban Fantasy, Plus Doctor Who Companions and Dying American SF

• Episode 4 -- Trayvon Martin Recap, GOP Budget Woes, School Prayer, and Bunnies
• "The Race Problem:  STFU about the post-racial society; it's bullshit..."
• Episode 5 -- Bombing Planned Parenthood, Supreme Strip Searches, the China "Threat," and More!

And that about does it.

What have you been up to?