The Diamond Age

[thessalian]

So I went to see/hear Neal Stephenson read. Shame he didn't actually read. He said that, on the basis of his experience with 15 American crowds, people would get bored with the "monotonous reading of a book section". So he moved straight on to the Q&A. Mindful of something I read in "On Writing", I asked about the language. Well, I asked if his use of short words in very long sentences was conscious and if so, what he intended by it. Apparently he hadn't thought of it ("Bet he will now..." said Dave) but said that the simple words was probably due to the fact that he'd thrown a lot of ten-dollar words into a previous work and this was his way of counterbalancing. Interesting way of dealing with it. Apparently he wrote "Quicksilver" with a fountain pen; he gave good reasons why, but I still had to shudder. Also talked about why the "Snow Crash" movie plans are shelved for the forseeable future -- and man am I proud of him for not compromising. Someone asked him why his endings are so abrupt -- apparently he gets that a lot but I always thought that was the best thing about his writing because nothing really resolves itself in real life (his exact statement; I had to grin). And of course, someone asked where he got his ideas, at which point I nearly had a brain haemorrhage trying to stifle my giggles and Dave told me to behave myself. Probably a good thing he did -- after I'd got over the giggles, I might have gone up, cuffed the girl around the head with my rucksack and said, "That is a question with no answer! Why bother? Why inflict that cringe-making question to a man who makes his living by putting stories to paper and not questioning where these ideas come from?" Apparently Harlan Ellison answers that question by saying "Schenectady. I get deliveries every Thursday." I think I like him.

Now that I'm done with my little review of the Stephenson "reading", on to the friend of leopard_lady -- the Dave I mention above. Trying to describe him is a waste of time -- if you've met him, you'll understand; if you haven't, you probably don't care that much (same as for every friend of a friend, really). Suffice it to say that I liked him. I found him intelligent, interesting and amusing. (Trying to avoid the N-word here, but he was that too.)

He has loaned me "Akira" and burned me VCDs of something called "Firefly", both of which I will watch when there's opportunity. He also loaned me the rulebook for something called "7th Sea", a RPG I'd never heard of (surprise, surprise, surprise...). It sounds fascinating and, GM willing and the Thames don't rise, I may be joining this little band of miscreants. Of course, the group meets in a far-distant part of London, so I look to be spending the bulk of my Sunday commuting, but I never do very much on Sundays anyway.

In other news, I've a cold/the flu/a virus of some description. In short, I'm ill. But I'm not complaining in the office because Kate's got the monopoly on that; she's put her back out (she knew she had problems with it but went fencing anyway and now it's completely fucked) and you can't get through five minutes without her moaning and groaning. My view on it is as follows:

If you're that ill, go home. If you're not, suck it up.

Thess

Comments

Re: gets out the jar with holes punched in the lid

[50ftqueenie.livejournal.com]

oh it does, fox decided that the 'pilot' ep wasn't informative enough and had several eps made and ran BEFORE it... so its order ran kinda screwy and i actually really dug it... lots of really good violence and snark (key to a good action show imho)