After another day of school visits and computer
stuff, I made dinner and then realized that I didn’t have to go anywhere or do anything.
This has been rare lately, so I made the most of it. I stationed myself in the front porch rocker and enjoyed the rain.
It is not quite like being on the beach, but you can see and smell moving water, so it is as close as we landlocked people are likely to get.
I also knitted up some more Plymouth Stone Cotton. It has a nice, crunchy sort of hand, a good cotton feel. We’ll see how it behaves in a garment, always the question with cotton.
#2 son came up when I was wearing the Bijoux Blouse and contemplating what to make with the Plymouth Stone Cotton and said “Isn’t that a little baggy?” And of course it is.
It’s designed that way, like a sweatshirt.
But I am not supposed to be wearing sweatshirts, so I determined to make something non-baggy for my next project, and I am making Cherry Bomb from Big Girl Knits. I reviewed that book here on May 13, 2006 (you can go look at it if you want by using the calendar buttons on the left) but haven’t actually made anything from it. In general, I don’t think reviews of knitting books by people who haven’t knitted anything from said books are useful. I sometimes get rather cross over ar Amazon when all the reviews of a knitting book I am considering are by people who have merely looked at the pictures. But this is my diary, so I can do that. After I knit something, then I go to Amazon and do a review as a good example.
Speaking of books, I am reading Resenting the Hero. It is science fiction. Lostarts recently told me I should read some science fiction. I do read some science fiction, actually. Considering that 40% of American adults never read any fiction and 3 books a year of any kind represents the national average, I probably read more than the average amount of science fiction. It is, however, a small fraction of the total number of books I read, so I was trying to mend my ways and got this book from Booksfree.
It reminds me why I don’t read much science fiction.
There is always a lot of explaining in science fiction. This is necessary to the genre. You can’t be having a world completely different from our own without explaining things, and have it make sense. My favorite science fiction authors — Suzette Haden Elgin, Harlan Ellison, Terry Pratchett, Elizabeth Scarborough, Christopher Moore, Peter David, Isaac Asimov, Douglas Adams — either manage to embed the explanations in the story or make the explanations as entertaining as the story itself.
Moira Moore, though she has some engaging characters and a good plot, thunks down the explanations in great dull chunks, or, worse yet, doesn’t explain things until you have quite lost the thread of the story for wondering what the heck she’s talking about.
I am going to finish the book, and I am even enjoying it, but it isn’t making me think “Gee, I should read more of this genre.”
There are a couple of genres that I never read. I never read horror, haven’t since reading The Exorcist back in the 1970s. Gothic novels, yes, including the classics that sometimes get included in the horror genre but are really just spooky. And I never read Westerns, unless you count Lonesome Dove. I don’t read pornography or romantic suspense, either. And I guess that there are probably some genres I’m not aware of. I mean, there might be a whole canon of novels set in tattoo parlors, or ones that have vehicles as the characters, and I’ve missed them entirely.
Other than that, my tastes in books are pretty catholic. As long as they are well-written, I don’t care what genre they are in.#2 daughter and I are coming up on the deadline for our writing contest, though, so perhaps I should be reading more romance novels right now.
Not today, though, because I will be at the store. Since I haven’t been there since last week, I don’t know what I will be doing, but I am guessing that there will be a lot of cleaning involved. My husband has just politely requested that I do some cleaning at home, too, since that has sort of been bypassed in favor of work and partying.
TGIF!
Partying always surpasses cleaning in importance. That way you aren’t tempted to continue the party at your place after you’ve closed down the bar.
That characteristic of science fiction that you [quite rightly] are complaining about — “As you know, Bob… [huge chunk of explanation]” — is referred to in the trade as “infodumping,” and sf writers are strongly advised against it. Sometimes the advice gets taken; sometimes, as you’ve noted, it doesn’t.
Good to have a word for it.
I have always struggled with Science Fiction (except Kurt Vonnegut and Jack Finney) maybe because, as you say here, there is “lots of explaining” and that interrupts the story for me.
Anyway – ryc – thanks. It always amazes me that your average American will throw their neighbor out of a job in order to save five cents on a can of soup, or deprive kids of health insurance to save ten bucks on a tv. We may not like the price floors in Ireland, but they keep all of our workers earning a living wage, let everyone go to the doctor and every qualified student go to university. But yes, our houses and cars are smaller, and we usually watch TV in the same room as our children. Maybe that seems like too much of a sacrifice to live in a fair place, but it does not to me.
I read lighter SF – where big “infodumps” aren’t necessary. I tend to read thrillers (a la James Patterson) and horror (a la Stephen King and Dean Koontz). Lately, however, I ‘ve been reading new authors and a few random pieces that I find here and there. I’m hoping to start Lovely Bones next week while the spouse is away at training. And DITTO to thenarrator.
I HOPE I didn’t say you should read SF. If so, what I was trying to say is that I’m surprised you don’t since your mom writes it.
Anyway, huge chunks of exposition are just bad writing. In any context.
I like all your favorite authors.
I told my daughter about Good Omens, and she drove her boyfriend nuts by waking him up to read him the footnotes! Terry Pratchett is almost the only author I know who finds it necessary to add footnotes to fiction. His footnotes generally aren’t necessary to the story, so you can skip them. If you do, you’ll miss a lot, though.
I find it hard to believe that the average number of books read in a year is 3! There must be a dozen people who are being deprived of books because of you and me.
I agree with the comments made above about SF. Good SF authors do not need to ‘infodump’. Even in so-called ‘hard’ SF the good authors manage to give you a reasonable idea of the techno-science context without stalling the story. I prefer British ‘hard’ SF to American ‘hard’ SF but most of the SF I read focuses on issues and characters rather than on ‘science’.
You sing in lectures? There was one young lecturer at work who used to regularly dance at her lectures and I thought that was crazy. But singing?
And in answer to your Qs, no a round of applause is not that common although I have been in one or two first year lectures when the lecturer made a terrific job of lecturing and the students have applauded at the end. This was not so in my case – it was a sympathetic reaction to my very obvious nervousness I think. They knew that I had never lectured before and because of the subject matter they figured that lecturing it was probably even worse than listening to it. I’m sure that the students tend to think of me as a somewhat elderly student rather than a member of the academic staff so they empathise with my total lack of ease when presenting things in front of a large group of people – particularly as a proportion of them with be hauled in as tutor/demonstrators themselves next year by the teaching fellow and will have to learn how to do this themselves
RYC: LOL Who knows, singing in a stats lecture may actually help the students cope with the material more. They already think that anyone who teaches stats is crazy so they won’t notice a little more craziness. Perhaps I should make the suggestion that at least 10 minutes of each lecture should be sung rather than spoken (as long as I am not the one taking the lecture of course)