(no subject)

[devi]

I was up marking coursework till nearly 3am last night and now my head is full of wool and my neck feels simultaneously stiff and too wobbly. Today was running up and down stairs chasing more coursework, sending the students out to buy plastic folders and find me the hole punch because surely you're not submitting THAT? It's all in but one now, finally, and for the rest of the evening I am off duty. I am eating bucket pasta and thinking about watching 24 Hour Party People, which always inspires me because it's about a shambolic disorganised mess of a person who through sheer enthusiasm manages to make great stuff happen, almost by accident.

But even despite my adrenalin-filled get-things-done state, I still found myself perched on the edge of the bed half-dressed for half an hour this morning, breathlessly devouring the end of Geoff Ryman's Air. Oh my. I'd only picked it up while packing my bag to see how far I was from the end. I went out to catch the bus still staggered by the brilliance.

More people ought to know about Geoff Ryman. Okay, lots of people seem to have read 253, his book of thumbnail portraits of people on a tube train, but who knows about The Child Garden, the love story of a girl and a polar bear opera-singer in a near-future sub-tropical London? It's full of amazing language and big ideas and is one of the best books I've ever read. Was, his remix of The Wizard of Oz, is also great and very, very dark. Lust is an awkward one, about a scientist who develops the power to manifest anyone he fancies, alive, dead or fictional, but it's still got more crunchy concepts and moments of insight and beauty than any three more processed and pasteurised books you care to mention, and towards the end goes careering off into a gorgeous crazed mystic tangent about what really happens when you die. He writes about time and memories and the random connections between people, the texture of cities and making art and throwing impromptu street parties in the face of death. With balloons.

Excuse my fangirling. I just think he's criminally ignored, though he did win a bunch of awards for Air, which is set in the last village in the world to get online. When I was in Trinity Netsoc we invited him over to give a talk about 253 and online fiction (yes, it was the late nineties, how can you tell?) and a bunch of us committee people got outrageously drunk with him in his B&B while he told the guy who was Secretary to stop wasting his life and go have babies. It sounded as if he felt he'd failed at his life. I think he ought to have people peeling grapes for him, if there was any justice.

Off to the Bristol Comic Expo tomorrow with a bundle of Wasted Epiphanies to thrust upon people. With polar bears in it, yes. I rip off Mr Ryman all the time without meaning to.

Comments

[jackfirecat.livejournal.com]

Personally, I would look to mr_snips for borrowing previous Interzones, including the very wonderful 'lost things found in boxes'

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

though he did win a bunch of awards for Air,

And The Child Garden won the Clarke Award, and "The Unconquered Country" won a World Fantasy Award. (I thought Was had as well, but apparently not.) But yes, he's ace. Are you aware of his recent (by which I mean post-Air) mainstream novel, The King's Last Song? Worth a look.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

He also, if you followed him in Interzone, wrote a short story about Lesbian Totalitarians, with 'work camps' for men,

"O Happy Day". Which isn't so much about the lesbian totalitarians as it is about the gay men who are in charge of the work camps, which are only for straight men.

Also of note: the ass-babies story.

[jackfirecat.livejournal.com]

Quite right. I (had forgotten) was eliding details.

> the ass-babies story.

Do I really need to know? Possibly not.

[several-bees.livejournal.com]

When I was in Trinity Netsoc we invited him over to give a talk about 253 and online fiction (yes, it was the late nineties, how can you tell?)

Oh dear, I'm reading livejournal at the moment in order to put off finishing the citations for my thesis essay on, er, online fiction. I was hoping to send it in tonight, only a week or so after I was supposed; am I actually ten years too late?

[killalla]

If you guys are going to be heading to Bristol on Saturday, give me a call - I'm catching a train out there in the morning and will be wandering around with some friends.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

It was more the mention of 'Netsoc' that made me write that, actually. A college society whose purpose was to go 'ooh cool' at the brand-new shiny internet. These days it'd be like having - I dunno - a Lampshade Society or maybe a Spoon Society.

We gave away shell accounts, too, and most members didn't have net access at home.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

We're going down on Friday, but we'll certainly be doing some wandering around and looking at things on Saturday...

I haven't been to Bristol before. The fact that I'm all enthused about this mini-break shows how itchy my feet are.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I am now, thank you! It Shall Be Mine.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Or a 'fridge society'. "Martin Banks used to pop up every so often in technology journalists' online discussions to remind us all that once upon a time there were three refrigerator magazines. They ran features on how best to arrange food, how long to keep it, storage techniques, and, I imagine, quirky little pieces about whether the light stays on when you close the door." - quoted from http://allsoftmagazines.com/

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Rumour has it that at some point in the next eighteen months there will be a proper short story collection from Tachyon, too, which will be roughly the most essential thing ever. (At the moment, the only collected short fiction is Unconquered Countries, which (a) was published in about 1993 and (b) is out of print.)

Re: Geoff Ryman

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

He lived in the house on Norham Gardens that used to house the OUFG library when I was an undergraduate, just before I did and just before the OUSFG library was there.

!!!

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Gay men having children. Falls with "O Happy Day" under "things that only Geoff Ryman could get away with", possibly.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Oh, and congratulations on being so close to the end!

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Geoff Ryman writes mpreg! Heh!

And he does have a thing about biologically unlikely pregnancies, doesn't he?

[several-bees.livejournal.com]

Not quite so close as that, I'm afraid - there's two parts to it, so the essay is only half, and there's still a bit to do on the other half. Still, end in sight. And at... 3:28 a.m., I'm done with the citations at last.

[cosmolinguist]

Andrew is almost but not quite sufficiently dedicated to go to the Bristol Comics Expo. He's still a bit stricken that he's not going, but then he remembers it's in Bristol... :-) Hope you have a good time.

[shewho.livejournal.com]

a dark version of the wizard of oz, you say? obsessive curiousity piqued!

say hello to bristol for me. can you go to the hatchet and request kate bush in an irritating fashion too? that'd be ace :)

[amuchmoreexotic.livejournal.com]

Are you onto issue 2 of Wasted Epiphanies? I thought the first one was excellent.

You know that some of the comic shops in this here London have an "amateur press" section? If you post me a bundle of WE, I could almost certainly get it on the shelf in a couple of places.

Re: Geoff Ryman

[hatmandu.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm intrigued by this comment - I've not read Air (for that matter, I've read some of 253, but never got round to all of it, and have had a copy of Was sitting unread on my shelves for years - oops), but am piqued by the polar (bear) opposite views you and bluedevi offer. Without spoiling it for me, why do you dislike it so much?

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I have and love 253, Lust, and The Child Garden, and keep meaning to pick up Air, so this post will probably catapult it up to the top of my mental list again. I didn't know The King's Last Song was out (oops), that's going on the list too.

Re: Geoff Ryman

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

It was astoundingly trite, noble peasants vs the evil Micro$oft telepathy software (I wish I was joking but I'm not).

Re: Geoff Ryman

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Also, there was none of the flair his language usually has, as I said the prose reminded me of Cory (spit) Doctorow.

Re: Geoff Ryman

[hatmandu.livejournal.com]

That certainly doesn't sell it to me. I wonder if our hostess can woo me back with a defence..?

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

there's two parts to it, so the essay is only half, and there's still a bit to do on the other half

Uh oh, it's all sounding horribly "Achilles and the Tortoise"!