Month: May 2014

The Harlot’s Progress (BBC4) and The Georgian Underworld: A Study of Criminal Subcultures in Eighteenth-Century England by Rictor Norton

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Historical fiction–speculative or otherwise–is a challenge for a number of reasons, but probably the biggest challenge is the problem of texture: how to get the texture of that alien historical world right? This is what impressed me about China Miéville’s depiction of Bas-Lag in Perdido Street Station (a book I discussed here a decade ago): sure, as one friend commented, it reads like someone’s AD&D adventure… but the world is so utterly textured, so rife with details. It feels like a real city at some grungy, nasty moment in its history, like the festering horror-show that was London in an …

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Bluebell the Fairy’s Birthday Present

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A little break from serious posts… Late last year, I posted one chapter from the Reading Street textbook series that I cowrote with my former colleague Haeyoung Kim a few years ago. (That chapter was my second-favorite, a sort of anti-imperialist response to the kiddie portal fantasy subgenre, and a story I’m proud of, though it’s not quite the best of the bunch.) I also discussed the conscious ideological approach to writing this kids’ story, which from the beginning was simply intended for use in an English textbook. However, today I just noticed that my absolute favorite mini-story from the series, “Bluebell the …

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Literary Sampling and Remixing: Sterling & Gibson’s The Difference Engine

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I’ve intended to get around to The Difference Engine for years on end, but never started in on it in earnest until this year, for reasons I can’t explain, really. I’ve had a copy all these years, but never quite gotten around to it. Anyway, I picked up an audiobook edition of the novel using one of my Audible credits, since I’ve been listening to audiobooks a fair bit while walking, or doing chores around the house, and I’m enjoying it immensely. I remember reading an interview with the authors in Science Fiction Studies many years ago, and being very curious about the method they …

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Yeast, as Understood in 1736

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  I’m really glad I was able to get a second opinion on one little detail that has become of great importance to my ongoing novel project. That is: how well did brewers understand the function of yeast in brewing back in 1736? It might sound strange, but that detail is incredibly important in terms of a lot of things going on in the book! During my visit to Korea, I got a chance to read a fair bit of Jamil Zainasheff and Chris White’s book Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation. I wasn’t particularly blown away by the book: …

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Riots in Bình Dương

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So, I don’t know if it’s hit your radar if you’re living outside the country, but Vietnam’s been having some pretty serious civil unrest the last couple of days: in an industrial area called Bin Duong Bình Dương , rather near to Saigon, factories were attacked, looted, and set on fire. The international news coverage seems to have caught on in the last 24 hours, and I see in the articles a lot of attempts to clarify what triggered this outburst: Thousands of workers rampaged through an industrial area in southern Vietnam on Tuesday in what reportedly began as protests against China’s …

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Blogging Pound’s The Cantos: Canto LVI & LVII

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This entry is part 43 of 58 in the series Blogging Pound's The Cantos

This post is one in a series of readings I’m posting of each poem in Ezra Pound’s The Cantos, a few at a time. The readings are atypical, for reasons made clear in my first post in this series. This post marks a return to this project of blogging the Cantos after half a year away from it. I figured I might as well try to finish the slog through the Chinese and Adams Cantos, so that I can at least reach the Pisan Cantos, which it is said is worth the effort. We’ll see, though: the Chinese Cantos, at least, …

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The Answer, Madam, is Not More English Lessons…

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I thought it would be nice if I waited till after Mother’s Day to post this. While some parents are great, open, progressive, aware, and cool, here’s what it’s (edit: usually) generally like to try to talk to an expatriate Korean parent1 whose kid is showing signs of serious emotional or mental disturbance2: THE PARENT: “… what do you mean, problems? Do you think… do you think maybe he’s addicted to video games?” YOU: “Uh… look at your son. He’s rocking back and forth, and his eyes are glowing red, and the electricity is flashing on and off to the beat of his chanting…” THE …

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Back Onto Flute

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Ah, new challenges. I’m back onto practicing the flute again, and it’s driving me bananas. I probably would have been playing the soprano sax instead, except that I haven’t made it out to the sax repair shop on the other side of town, so that cleaning swab is still stuck in the neck… so flute it is.   It’s hard to master this instrument. Practicing makes me dizzy. I’m constantly tempted to put off learning the proper (crazy, sax-altissimo-like) third-octave fingerings, because I can get over half that octave out by overblowing the left hand of the second octave. I …

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Witches, Gin, and the 18th Century

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Research is an interesting hole to jump into, as long as you’re prepared to really jump in. For example, my novel plotting is coming together very nicely, but it led me to a place where I needed to know more about the persecution of witches in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. Sadly, I must rely on internet sources for a lot of my look-abouts, since I don’t really have access to a proper library with English resources, but I still seem able to uncover some interesting things. For example, did you know that in the 18th century–in the …

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Swords Against Death by Fritz Leiber

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Swords Against Death is the second of Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar books, featuring the archetypal characters of Fafhrd  the barbarian and The Grey Mouser the rogue. The book includes stories spanning from 1940 to 1970… which I imagine, if you’re reading the book attentively and know this, would leave you watching for signs of change and development in the author’s writing style. As for me, it wasn’t really apparent to me, as I read the stories, that they were written across such a long span of years. That isn’t to say there weren’t shifts in tone and style, or that there …

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