RIP Arthur C. Clarke

The "favorite science fiction authors to die within the past year" trifecta has come to pass with the passing of Arthur C. Clarke yesterday (the first two were, of course, Kurt Vonnegut and Madeline L'Engle). Clarke is of course best known for 2001: A Space Odyssey but was also a prolific writer of short stories, and was the guy who thought up the concept of geostationary orbit for a satellite.

Clarke is tied with Ray Bradbury as my favorite science fiction writer not as much for the 2001 series but rather because of the short stories. I discovered them in high school and happily spent weeks working through the telephone-book thickness of The Collected Short Stories of Arthur C. Clarke. I loved the originality and complexity conveyed in just a few short pages for each miniature masterpiece, but most of all the hope and fancifulness of science fiction really made it all a lot more fun. I mean hey, we were going to find obelisks on the Moon and life on Jupiter V and survive the sun going nova on us and all sorts of things! No wonder space travel in actuality came as a disappointment.

I confess one thing though: I might have read every single thing he read, but with the notable exception of Rama (and the subsequent trilogy) I never fell in love with Clarke's longer works. He lost direction easily, and towards the end of the 2001 series he started just explaining things away by saying "well there were new advances in physics in the future that makes this freaky levitation possible! yay!" and what not. I will also further confess that I never actually did see all of 2001 the movie- I was in elementary school when my dad rented it once, but decided it was boring about 10 minutes in and never got a chance to watch it again. I'll have to get on that.

So if you've a moment, get yourself a drink and page through a few of the old stories. A master writer does not leave this Earth without leaving a long-reaching record behind.

"He was now master of the world, and he was not sure what to do next. But he would think of something..."

How to Score Free Books

Got these in the mail today-
How? Here's the story: one of my regularly scheduled Internet stops on Sundays is at Postsecret, and last week they mentioned that student writers for university papers could request an advanced review copy of the book A Lifetime of Secrets, due out October 9th. I realized with a jolt that hey, I'm a student writer!, and after a few emails with a very kind publicist the book was sent with the understanding that I'll be writing a piece on Postsecret next week for The Observer. Currently I'm just envisioning it as another column for Quarked rather than a proper book review, but we'll see how things go.

So anyway, the package arrived for me today and to my surprise there was another book too! Yay! This second one is Jubilee City: A Memoir at Full Speed by Joe Andoe (an artist chap). It came out this past summer and has great reviews on Amazon, and I'm really looking forward to reading that one.

I'll post whatever article that comes out of this once it comes out, of course, and let you know how my free book turns out as well. But this entire chain of events has really made my day, as it's not every day you snag free advanced copies with a retail value of $50! Perhaps there's something to this writer thing after all...

RIP Madeline L'Engle

Madeline L'Engle, author of A Wrinkle In Time, has passed away at the age of 88.

Honestly, I'm very sad- we talked about her in my creative writing class just two days ago, actually, so somehow it seems very fresh. Further, A Wrinkle In Time was my complete, utter favorite book in 5th grade (until I read The Golden Compass in 6th), and I am sure millions of other schoolchildren like me loved it because we spent a lot of time wondering about 5th dimensions, the tesseract, and the importance of the indavidual. For this, I will forgive her for the sleepless night I spent during my first read-through of the book because I kept having nightmares about the giant, totalitarian IT. Here's a scary thought for you that I could never get over: you realize that IT never "dies" or anything, and is still somewhere out there in the L'Engle universe? Scary.

Unfortunately, I tried reading her other books, but with the exception of Many Waters I just never could get into them. A Wrinkle In Time was a complete gem though, so for that I salute her.

Stephen King on Harry Potter

Stephen King wrote an absolutely wonderful review of Harry Potter for Entertainment Weekly that you all ought to read, as it covers everything from why Harry Potter became successful, why we love British writing, and how he wished someone at some point would "pull out a good old MAC-10 and start blasting away like Rambo." Ah, he explains it all so perfectly!

Of all the topics he covers, though, I found this section the most poignant, discussing how academics keep saying traditional novels are dead and kids don't read-

But reading was never dead with the kids. Au contraire, right now it's probably healthier than the adult version, which has to cope with what seems like at least 400 boring and pretentious ''literary novels'' each year. While the bigheads have been predicting (and bemoaning) the postliterate society, the kids have been supplementing their Potter with the narratives of Lemony Snicket, the adventures of teenage mastermind Artemis Fowl, Philip Pullman's challenging His Dark Materials trilogy, the Alex Rider adventures, Peter Abrahams' superb Ingrid Levin-Hill mysteries, the stories of those amazing traveling blue jeans. And of course we must not forget the unsinkable (if sometimes smelly) Captain Underpants. Also, how about a tip of the old tiara to R.L. Stine, Jo Rowling's jovial John the Baptist?

King raises a good point here that he is undoubtedly well-familiar with: that is, the best books are the ones that make you think and you have fun with. I often have skirmishes over this with people in the humanities over this because apparently the best stuff is never read by anyone not in academia, but I find this incredibly silly because no one I know reads to be confused and supercilious. Why would you? I figure good writing is sort of like good art in the sense that we like best what we identify with, and for better or worse I am hard-pressed to find someone who didn't identify with Harry Potter!

I will close this with one final story, which occured when I went to Stratford-upon-Avon (the English one, not the Ontario one) three summers ago. We spent the night at a bed and breakfast when we were there, and during the morning I couldn't help but overhear the conversation of a nearby table- they were a group of graduate students studying English, and one of them lamented how he could make a lot of money if only he would "lower" himself to the level of writing like Stephen King. Clearly, there is a definition of success that is askew here.

Voldemort Can't Stop The Rock

In just under twenty-four hours, the entire world over will finally know the ending of Harry Potter. I am kind of in shock about this: from here on out, no one will ever have to be plagued with torment over years of wondering if Harry will survive or if Snape is really evil. Subsequent generations will never understand this and will likely give us odd looks when we describe things like midnight releases at bookstores or the complete secrecy the publisher tried to maintain during distribution. After all these years, it will all be over.

For me, it’s odd to think that tomorrow will bring about the end of an affiliation that began nearly a decade ago. I first read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the early summer of 1999 when I was thirteen and the series was still an underground phenomenon no one knew about, save thirteen-year-old girls of bookish persuasion. After tearing through it, I passed the two books (yes, there were only two books then) onto my siblings, Linda and Patrick, and we spent that summer rereading those two books and speculating to no end as to what would happen next. We cursed our luck in nearly every way imaginable too: there was no such thing as simultaneous release at the time, so while the British kids already knew what happened in Book 3 we were forced to wait until the American release date in the fall. The concept that we would later need to wait years for the next book instead of just a mere few months was, at the time, inconceivable.

The years passed, and as we were growing up Harry aged alongside us. And while I was never really obsessed with Harry Potter or anything, there is no denying that Harry kept creeping into what I was doing. He showed up when I visited Hungary after eighth grade and my cousin and I compared our copies, wondering who on Earth decided that “Roxfort” is the proper Hungarian translation of “Hogwarts” or how exactly “Hugrabug” became the equivalent of “Hufflepuff.” Harry made an appearance in one of the very first editorials I wrote, which appeared in the high school paper around the release of the first movie and lambasted movie producers for turning perfectly wonderful books into perfectly terrible movies. He even showed up in Wellington, New Zealand a few months ago when I learned during the course of conversation that one of my British friends in the hostel had been cast as a Slytherin in the first two films.

There is no denying that it’s been fun growing up along with one of the most prominent cultural icons of my generation. And yet here’s the thing: while others might be impatiently waiting to see what will happen, I personally do not want Harry Potter to end. How could I? From here on out there will never again be the magic of opening a new Harry Potter book for the first time, and Harry will make the subtle but important transition from someone I grew up with to someone I knew while growing up. It just won’t be the same anymore.

So as we finish the finally countdown, I’d just like to say thank you, Harry. It’s been an exciting eight years. And be sure to give Voldemort hell tomorrow, will you?

William Blake At the Auckland Zoo

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And, when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? What dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water'd heaven with their tears,

Did He smile His work to see?

Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

-William Blake, "The Tiger"

RIP Kurt Vonnegut

Why did no one tell me that Kurt Vonnegut died last Wednesday? I mean yes, I was sort of travelling through some of the more inaccessible regions of the world, but some things are important and you should relay onward!

Maybe next time I head off I should post a note here- "in the event of disaster, apocalypse, or death of a major 20th century writer, please drop Yvette a line as she'd probably like to know about it." Can't hurt.

But anyway, guys, for better or worse writers become immortal in their words, and as such Vonnegut will be immortal for a long time. So get yourself a good spot of tea, grab a copy of Cat's Cradle or Slaughterhouse Five, and reminisce. Or just follow this link and (re)read Harrison Bergeron and how in the year of 2081, everybody was finally equal...

So it goes.

The Golden Compass Teaser Trailer

The above clip contains the recently-released trailer of The Golden Compass, which is set to be released in movie form at Christmas later this year. Its cast includes people like Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, and Sam Elliott, and it looks pretty good so far.

In my life I've had a lot of favorite books that were wonderful and made me think and dream. But I think it's fair to say that there are only a precious few that I have obsessed over, and the first one of these was The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman. I first read it when I was in sixth grade, and I subsequently spent all of that year (and the year after that, and the year after that) reading and rereading it. My copy of this book was signed by Philip Pullman himself and I carried it everywhere- even now it's one of the few precious books I brought to New Zealand, and it's fraying and falling apart. And it's the books that are falling apart but you nonetheless take half a world away that have truly changed you.

If you haven't actually read (or, worse yet, never heard of) this book, here's the general gist of things. The story focuses on Lyra, a girl who lives in another world parallel to ours where everything's very similar but a touch different: people have extensions of selves called daemons which appear as the animal you're most like, there are creatures like witches and armored bears which roam the Arctic, and the Church is much more powerful and meddling in people's lives. During the course of the story you run into stuff like people attempting to bridge the gap between worlds, the concept of original sin, and children who disappear due to the evil "Gobblers." It's a wonderful story, and Lyra is the heroine every eleven year old girl would want to be in it.

But the reason I loved it so much, I have to note, is because no matter how fantastic things get Pullman sneaks in such a big science base that it's ridiculous. This book was my first introduction to stuff like quantum mechanics and the many worlds theorem and dark matter, and what I loved most about it was no matter how incredible it got it the best parts could potentially happen. (And this wasn't science fiction either- science fiction distinctly covers things that you don't want to ever happen.) I still think of science the same way little kids think of fairy tales, and I'm very lucky in this respect.

So anyway, if you haven't read The Golden Compass, read it. If you have read The Golden Compass, watch the trailer and post what you think of it. Either way, you'll have a good time.

Bill Bryson in Auckland

Do you ever play that game with your friends regarding who you'd invite to dinner if you could invite anyone in the entire world? There's two versions: who you would invite who's currently alive and who you'd invite if you could raise the dead, but regardless of this rule there is always one person who consistantly makes both my lists. That person is Bill Bryson, and I met him today here in Auckland!


(For those of you who don't know who Bill Bryson is and why his place is reserved in my dinner invitations, do yourself a favor and go read Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, In A Sunburned Country, or A Brief History of Nearly Everything. If possible, get all the above and all the others I haven't listed. Then revel in the awesomeness of my favorite living author, and come back here so you can be appropriately jealous of this situation.)

Anyway, this was truly a moment of opportunity thing because I really did not plan while coming to Auckland that I would be meeting Bill Bryson! Yesterday while coming back from Montihue Island we were lazy and took the bus, and the bus happened to stop outside the local bookstore. They had a display of Bryson's latest, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, and a little red flyer saying "Bill Bryson in store, Thursday February 22nd!"

I turned to the girl who was standing next to me, feeling that feeling you get when something incredibly awesome is about to happen but you don't want to get your hopes crushed prematurely. "Today's Wednesday the 21st, right?" I asked. (If you're confused remember that us New Zealand folk live in the future compared to those in North America.)

"Yes," she replied, and I promptly got excited in the sort of way only I seem to get excited about things, to the amusement of all the Kiwis who had a. never seen me do so before and b. had no idea who the heck Bill Bryson is. Ah, life.

So this morning I staked out the bookstore early in anticipation, and was one of the very first people in line. Time passed in a nice conversation with an old Kiwi gent behind me, and passed very quickly in one spurt because Bryson showed up half an hour early. Quite a crowd by this point!
Finally, it was my turn, and the first thing I discovered was that Bill Bryson is an awesomely wonderful and nice person. Despite the crowds he struck up a nice long conversation, having immediately picked up on my accent and asking me what brought me to New Zealand. Explaining the circumstances promptly made him act like we were fellow co-conspirators of sorts in this forgien country, the sort who were smart enough to realize how nice everyone is down here and how silly everyone else is for staying up North in wintertime (Bryson lives in the UK).

Then he got around to asking what I was studying and everything, and when I told him physics he got a little surprised. ("It's a pretty far way to come to study particles!") Then he asked what I wanted to do with physics, so when I told him astrophysics and hopefully some writing he didn't miss a beat.

"Like Carl Sagan?" he asked.

"Yes." I smiled a little shyly at this, because a lot of people get really weirded out by people who want to be science popularizers someday.

Bryson, bless him, just got even more excited. "Good luck!" he exclaimed, "the world needs more Carl Sagans. I'm sure you'll do great."

The crowd was a little restless by this point so I thanked him kindly and took my newly signed book. It's a copy of Down Under, the international title for In A Sunburned Country, which is my favorite Bryson book-
So my goodness, that was awesome. I'm so happy it worked out, and happy that my dinner invitation was well-placed!

Addendum: Forgot to mention that I overheard other people's questions, and per him he's not yet writing an NZ book but he's considering it (he's here on a weeklong publicity tour). Also, he's not sure what his next book will be about yet but he promised his wife it wouldn't involve globetrotting!