Journal of No. 118

 I've Been Thinking by Daniel C. Dennett

It's something of an autobiography of philosopher Dan Dennett, who is my spirit animal. He's done a lot of good (IMHO) work in dispelling a number of *wrong* ways of thinking about consciousness, and his other interests in artificial intelligence, evolutionary theory, etc. are also of great interest.

There's an awful lot more celebrity name-dropping in this than I expected, but I won't begrudge him his fame. Nothing earth-shattering, but a lot of interesting details, like that he was essentially one of the inaugural professors at UC Irvine when the campus got started, only later moving to Tufts where he's been happy ever since. A nice vignette about his farm in Maine with some description of his neighbors that are more sympathetic than those he gives to a number of asshole philosophers when he finally unloads on them in one short chapter about academic bullies. If Dennett is also your spirit animal, then you'll enjoy this. If you don't know who I'm talking about, it's not likely this will appeal

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Supernatural skullduggery among the 'secret' societies of Yale (like Skull and Bones). An enjoyable, but very dark, rollercoaster ride, but the number of smug Ivory Tower elitists is maddening. It helps somewhat that our heroine is a SoCal gutterpunk, but I did keep rooting for asteroid strike -- a pox on all their houses. Lots of interesting prose and more than enough action, but the whole set-up seems a bit contrived, and the possibilities of magic seem pushed by the requirements of the plot more than any coherent system. Go Bruins.

The House at Awful End by Philip Ardagh

I picked this out of a little free library initially because of the Gorey-adjacent illustrations by David Roberts. And the story clearly has a pleasantly dark theme. Allegedly the author wrote this story out, chapter by chapter, for a lonely nephew trapped in a boarding school. Maybe it doesn't go quite as dark as Ninth House, but it goes pretty dark for something aimed at kids. And not just dark, but kind of nasty in a way that goes beyond Roald Dahl's stories if not Roald Dahl's actual life. The book's humor (as such) is a series of random improbable predicaments. I can see how the episodic nature of its composition might lend to that, but it's just not funny. I'm probably wrong, though. The Financial Times writes 'it would be a sad spirit that didn't find this book hilarious," and if any journal is an expert in comedy, it's FT.

Five Strokes to Midnight is a World Fantasy Award nominated anthology of horror/dark fiction stories by five authors: Gary A. Braunbeck & Hank Schwaeble (which duo also edited), Tom Piccirilli, Deborah LeBlanc, and Christopher Golden. Each contributed two or three stories, loosely bound to a theme particular for each author. All pretty good stuff, many with a vein of deep personal emotion -- as a robot, this is not always my thing, but here it is handled generally really well.

The book starts out strong with Piccirilli's "Loss", as some out-of-left-field fantastic elements add some mystery to the regret. Tom's second story seems overlong, but now that he himself is gone, I'll take all the words I can get.

Leblanc's Curses gives us some vivid pictures of backwoods Louisiana - voodoo and worse.

Schwaeble's "Bone Daddy" is an agreeably nasty bit of work -- Lap dances for liches never turn out well.

Golden's Folklore stories take on Lost Miners, Goat Suckers and Ghost Trains. The last of which ends with a satisfying note that helps you close the book without shuddering.

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The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book collects a few of the longer verses Tolkien used in the Lord of the Rings, some related poems not in LotR, and others.

Many of them are rather somber in tone, while others are quite, well, Tom Bombadilly.

"The Mewlips" is delightfully creepy

The Shadows where the Mewlips dwell
Are dark and wet as ink,
And slow and softly rings their bell,
As in the slime you sink.
...

And how can I not love "Cat"?

The fat cat on the mat
   may seem to dream
of nice mice that suffice
   for him, or cream;
but he free, maybe,
   walks in thought
unbowed, proud, where loud
   roared and fought
his kin, lean and slim,
   or deep in den
in the East feasted on beasts
   and tender men.
...

His love of internal rhyme is on full display here, something I often find appealing.

The art by Pauline Baynes is amusing, hearkening to medieval illustrations, but it makes for a good segue into my last little review

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Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons and Dragons

This is a documentary film about the artists behind some of the iconic images of D&D. In many ways, it is exactly as nerdy as it sounds. As a documentary, it's maybe not the best, but there are some neat insights, and plenty of dragons (and dungeons) on display.

Once upon a time, a lot of fantasy art looked like Pauline Baynes work -- somewhat tame. And then Frazetta and Vallejo showed up and went bonkers. D&D artists all wanted to be Frazetta and Boris. And this is their story.

It's interesting to see some of the inside history of how TSR grew, and went from amusing (and sometimes somewhat crudely executed) B&W images done on the cheap, and quickly turned into big colorful professional works. And then (to my eye) it drifted into something very 'corporate'. Alas, I think this final phase has, as the film I think correctly points out, informed a lot of current fantasy art (from novels to film to videogames to everything) making it derivative of a particular TSR corporate look. I mean it's commercial art, so it is what it is. And the stuff I'm nostalgic for was commercial art as well. But that original Players Handbook cover, which is rightly lauded in the documentary, just sets you thinking in exactly the right way to explain the game.

What just happened? Who are these people? What are they doing? Some people are doing this, and other people are doing that, and then there's those people over there --  what is going on? Did the lizard things live here and worship here? What's going to happen when they pop that jewel out? What will they do then?

A $1 find from an estate sale. My eye caught the name of Shirley Jackson (of "The Lottery" and The Haunting of Hill House fame). But this did not seem to be in the same vein...

It's novel-length, but clearly is stitched together from short stories originally "published individually in women's magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Woman's Day, Mademoiselle, and others."

They are amusing vignettes of domestic chaos that are semi-autobiographical, definitely with a women's magazine tinge. Perhaps the oddest thing about this particular book is that it was published by Scholastic and the blurb is pitched at the younger set. I mean, certainly there are children in the stories, but everything is from mom's viewpoint (rather than that of the savages). As I said, amusing and interesting as a mid-century artifact and a very different look at an author whose eponymous award is given for works of "psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic".

I think Dr. Pookie's mom might enjoy it.