I see you …

I don’t know where I heard this story but I heard somewhere that when a hunter comes at a monkey with a gun that the monkey closes its eyes because it believes that the hunter can’t see it since it can’t see the hunter. Jen seems to be in the same category since she has redirected both the domains I pointed to yesterday to her other domain – probably in the hope that if the evidence isn’t there, then she didn’t do it :p OK, this is the last time I’m going to drag up the subject of Jen (hopefully, unless she finds somebody stupid enough to hijack this domain – as she has been trying to do …) but since she took out her sites, most of what I wrote yesterday probably makes no sense – so I’ve updated the entry for yesterday with a link to a page which contains the actual entry that Jen had up on her site – along with a screen capture in case she claims she never wrote any of it (you never know with her :p) That’s it about Jen … No more 🙂

Thank you all for your kind support and comments yesterday 🙂 As I’ve remarked before, it is great to have such good friends and none of you have even met me! It can never be a bad world with people such as you in it 🙂

As I think I mentioned a while back, I’ve been reading "The Early Del Rey" and while his work reflects a lot of those times (it was around World War II), it has such a lot of characters that I liked that I found myself drawn into the stories over and over again. It makes me wish (again!) that I could write like that or that I lived in those times – though I probably would have hated it since I wouldn’t have had access to computers :p I’m reading a set of five short novels by Lester Del Rey now called "Gods and Golems" and that too seems to be very, very interesting. I’ll probably write more about it eventually 🙂

I’ve decided to switch over the tagboard to my own installation of QBoard since I do love the features of QBoard and I might as well make use of the QBoard installation since I’ve spent so much time on it already :p

To write the right way …

I finished reading Timothy Zahn’s "Cobras Two" yesterday. I was reluctant to put the book down and take up another book because I’d become so attached to the Moerau family and the other characters in the book, I’d gotten to know them, gotten comfortable with them and now didn’t want to move on to somebody else :p But unfortunately, unlike in life, there are no continuations to friendships made in books (unless the authors has written a sequel – or a few) and so I had to decide what I was going to read next. I since I enjoyed re-reading "Corbra" and because of the whole Johnny/Jonny connection, I thought of re-reading "Battlefield Earth" but couldn’t find the book and so I went through several other books before deciding to read the first volume of "The Early Del Rey" – a two volume collection of stories by Lester Del Rey with autobiographical commentaries by the author himself.

This book reminds me a lot of reading some of Asimov’s anthologies because the introductions to the stories give them a personal touch – a feeling as if you are talking directly to the author himself. I have loved what I’ve read so far because I can get a glimpse into the early writing career of Lester Del Rey and to a certain extent, it inspires me to try writing a bit more 🙂 It has been ages since I’ve written any fiction – I think the last bit of fiction I did was called "Dad’s Gone" and was actually inspired by somebody else’s writing – a story written by an online friend of mine in Australia. It doesn’t have the kind of story that I usually like to write – something which evokes a sense of wonder. This is more an introspective, character-based story with just a science fiction background. But again, I am wandering and am travelling further and further away from my original thought :p

I would like to write again. I want to write the kind of science fiction that people used to write in the good old days – science fiction which evokes a sense of wonder in you about the possibilities of science and the universe around us. The kind of stories which used to always amaze me and make me want to read more – and even try to write some. I don’t know if it is the market which has changed or the writers but I don’t see that kind of science fiction anymore. Or is it just that I’m not looking in the right place? Science fiction, if it is at all there, seems to be more about drama and characterization than about science itself. Maybe I’m not explaining it too well but I just don’t find the kind of science fiction that I used to like … So maybe I should go out and try to write some of my own … Or maybe I should not afflict anybody with bad writing :p

Girls and guys …

Nope, this is not a "birds and the bees" type of entry :p I don’t know why I never watched the "Gilmore Girls" while I was in the US (probably clashed with another favourite show of mine <g>) but I do enjoy it very much. Every episode just makes me chuckle or laugh out loud. They have got to have one of the quirkiest cast of characters in a show in a long time :p Probably not since "Picket Fences" though "Stark Raving Mad" also does come to mind but that didn’t have so many characters. Anyway, love the show but unfortunately can’t watch it every week since when my parents are here, my Mom takes over the TV just at the time "Gilmore Girls" is on to watch one of her Tamil soaps :p Ah well … still an enjoyable and funny series – I hope it has not been cancelled in the US.

As for the "guys" part – my current book is really,really interesting – it’s actually a double-edition of two of Timothy Zahn’s books – "Cobra" and "Cobra Strike" and has been released as a double-edition as "Cobras Two". First an aside though (probably to justify the whole "guys" thing :p) but what’s with the name Johnny (or a variation of it) for a soldier protagonist? :p The protagonist in "Cobra" is Jonny Moreau, then there is Johnny Rico in Heinlein’s "Starship Troopers" and Johnny "Goodboy" Tyler in L. Ron Hubbard’s "Battlefield Earth" (a darn good book though huuuge!). I liked all those characters but I was suddenly struck by the fact that they were all warriors and all were named Johnny. But I digress …

I first read "Cobra" almost ten years ago (around ’93 or ’94) and have totally forgotten all about the book except for the main concept – that it’s about a bunch of super-soldiers who fight against some alien enemies. When I took up "Cobras Two" I was tempted to skip the first book since I’ve already read it (even though I can’t remember anything about it) but decided to read it again anyway. I am glad that I did because I find that I love it! It’s an interesting read and I probably see certain things in a different perspective now. While I am never for war (I believe that war should be a last resort and not the first thing you do when confronted by a problem …), the story itself is intriguing – especially the psychological aspects of it. I’m looking forward to the second part since I hope that will not be so much about war as about responsibility – the responsibilities of those with different/higher abilities to society.

Incidentally, cobra is the name of the super-soldiers – they basically are a walking weapon because they have a toughened skeleton (coated with a strong and light metal), super-strength (servo motors implanted in the body to provide additional strength/speed) and implanted weapons like finger tip lasers and sonic weapons – plus, a targeting computer embedded below their brain 🙂 Yes, I know this is all fiction but I believe that the underlying principle, that those with special/higher/different skills owe a responsibility to society (or as Spider-man/Stan Lee would put it "with great power comes great responsibility"), still stands true.

Books and bindings …

I’ve returned to my original love in reading – science fiction 🙂 I’ve been reading mainly fantasy for a while and the last series I read – the DarkSword trilogy – was excellent because it evoked so much feeling in me. I could identify with the main character, his life and his love and I also could understand the world they lived in. However, once I finished the series, I felt that I needed a change and so I switched back to science fiction and the very first thing I picked up was Murray Leinster’s "Doctor to the Stars".

Now Murray Leinster is (actually it’s probably "was" since I have a feeling that he probably is no longer among the living) one of the older generation science fiction writers – those who had great ideas and simply wanted to tell a story instead of worrying about style and inane amounts of character development :p In fact, he is one of the writers – among whom I number Isaac Asimov, Robert Sheckly, Clifford D. Simak, Theodore Sturgeon, Damon Knight, A. E. Van Vogt and Jack Williams – that I like to pick up any time and read. I probably should include Robert Heinlein in the list too since he’s always been one of my favourites – an author who can come up with a great idea and make you go "wow" .. his "By His Bootstraps" immediately comes to mind by the way – but the last book by him that I read – "Glory Road" – just didn’t work for me. Maybe it was a bit too cynical, maybe I wanted the love story to end happily instead of finding that the woman had just been using the protagonist for her own ends instead of truly loving him – yes, I still believe in love, maybe I’m naive … – but it just didn’t work for me.

But to get back to what I was saying about my current reading, I have found "Doctor to the Stars" to be a great read. It’s a collection of three novellas and has some extremely interesting ideas/plots. One in particular deals with a war between the older generation and the younger generation and it is quite clever how the whole situation was brought about – we always know that is a difference of opinion between generations but this particular story brings it to the level of a war between fathers and sons and I found the whole concept and the psychology behind it interesting. Unfortunately, I finished "Doctor to the Stars" yesterday though I wish there was more to read there – so, it’s on to my next science fiction book …

Reading maketh a full man

I have been meaning to write about what I’m reading at the moment ever since I started this blog but I’ve never got the chance to do so – either I’ve had some other topic to rant on about or I’ve been too busy coding to write here at all. Well, it’s time I did this entry – not that it really matters to anybody, but I just want to write about this particular series – especially now 🙂 So what the heck am I reading these days? I’m reading Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s DarkSword trilogy – I’m actually on book II, "Doom of the Darksword" at the moment. Incidentally, I’d always thought that Tracy Hickman was a woman till I read the back cover of the book and found out that he was a guy – OK, fine, maybe I still don’t realize the gender difference between the different spellings of Tracy :p (Is there one BTW? There probably is, isn’t there?)

I am probably going to ramble around a bit before I come back to the series – let me warn you :p I started reading when I was around six or seven years old and have read voraciously ever since then. For the longest time, science fiction has been my preferred genre – at least, that was the case till about five or six years ago when I began to be seduced by the insidious call of fantasy :p I’d read fantasy before too but I think ever since I discovered Terry Pratchett, I’ve been reading more and more fantasy and neglecting science fiction. Incidentally, I buy a lot of books to read later and so I have many other books by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman but this is the first time I’m reading a book by them – and I think I’ve had at least the first two books of the Darksword series for over six or seven years now!

I liked the first book because it was about a world where everybody has magic. Incidentally, this world was supposed to have been populated by people who left Earth (using magic of course) due to the persecution of magic users on Earth. The people were supposed to have been led to this new world by Merlin – a nice touch I thought. The first book was all about how this boy born without any magic at all (and anybody without magic is considered dead on this world since magic is life) forges a sword which can absorb magic – the darksword. Of course, there are many other plot elements such as the fact that the boy will be killed if he’s discovered because anybody without magic is to be *mercifully* put to death on this world.

The second book is about the journey of this boy and his friends to the capital of their country so that the boy can claim is inheritance. The story became even more engrossing suddenly because the boy falls in love 🙂 I think I am a sucker for books with a romantic thread in it – I first started reading Westerns because Louis L’Amour always had a love story in his books :p I have enjoyed the love story so much in this particular instance because it seems to be very realistic – at least as far as I am concerned because I feel the same way as the characters in the books do. Maybe it is because I am in love at the moment or maybe I just get caught up in books but this story calls out to me 🙂 But I am still reading book two and so that’s all I’ve read …