Jellyn's Collection of Curiosities

I started reading this book from an edition borrowed from the library. Published in 1983 and illustrated by Mary Cowles Clark (ISBN 0517420627). Because I didn't want to lug the book with me to my parents' house, I finished reading it online at Page by Page Books.

I have vague memories of watching the cartoon of this on television. As I recall, I found it odd and boring. The book isn't quite so boring, but it's still odd. As a child, it seemed to me there should only be one story of Santa Claus. Oh, I suppose it could vary a little, as people tell stories differently, and some could get certain facts wrong -- adults are frequently fallible this way -- but the story should be essentially the same. And this one just falls far outside what I knew to be true about Santa Claus.

This Santa doesn't have 9 reindeer, and their names are all wrong. He doesn't have any elves. He doesn't even live at the North Pole as far as I can tell!

I suppose I should give a summary before I continue. A nymph is bored one day and discovers and abandoned child and ask the great Ak if she can keep him and raise him as her own. Thus is born Santa Claus, an orphan raised in the woods by a bunch of Immortal creatures. When he's older, he gets his first glimpse of mankind and decides the children need his help. So he slowly sets about his life's work of making toys and delivering them to the kids. And this story relates how he gradually accrues various things he needs to help him.. mostly involving deer and a sledge.

This story just has the wrong feel to it. It may be a fantasy story, but it's a fantasy mythos that doesn't fit in with the Santa Claus one. At least not the Santa universe that I know. His reindeer don't even fly!

Sometimes it also felt like the author was going out of his way to explain this or that inconsistency. Like, oh yea, and sometimes when the parents are kind and loving, Santa just drops the toys down in a heap and lets the parents arrange them nicely. Or, if the kids aren't satisfied by what they got on Christmas, then Santa's left some toys in toy stores so they can go and buy them(!).

I know this is an older story, and maybe he shouldn't be expected to have the names of the reindeer 'right', and Rudolph's absence is understandable, but.. where'd Mrs. Claus go? There's not even any room for her in this story, because Santa uses up the only chance of any mortal becoming immortal.

Throughout the story, he's known as Claus, which I had a lot of trouble getting over. In my head, I kept pronouncing it Klaus. Which just conjures up the image of a fish in a bowl.

The illustrations in the edition I started reading were rather annoying. There were spoilers! There'd be a picture of a cat with a bow, before the toy cat ever got a bow. There'd be pictures of dolls before Santa had ever made a doll. And there's even a picture of a toy soldier. It doesn't seem to fit with the text to me. I don't think this Santa would be making toy soldiers for the kiddies. Especially ones that looked 18th century European. So bad marks on the illustrations all around.

One final thing that stood out to me, which isn't unimportant, is that there is never any mention of what Christmas is. This head of all Rhyls guy just decides he'll only loan his deer out to Santa on one night a year and that night will be Christmas Eve. And I'm wondering at this point, does Santa even know what Christmas celebrates? He wasn't exactly raised by wolves, but almost may have well have been.

There is mention of a being who created all the Immortals, so God is definitely mentioned, if not by that particular name. You'd think there'd be some nod to Jesus. Some link between Christmas Eve and Santa other than it being a conveniently close date for the Rhyl King dude to be a jerk about. I mean, if I wanted to be a jerk about granting the request for the use of my deer, I'd pick the shortest night of the year, not close to the longest. (Being northern hemisphere-centric in that remark, yes.)

So, all in all, eh.

Was I still giving out stars? He almost doesn't deserve a Christmas star for this, but I'll give him 2. Okay story, but it's not Santa, I don't feel any Christmas magic, and it's not a light-hearted romp or anything particularly enjoyable or amusing.

I need to remember what books I buy, so I don't go reading them from the library or buying them again. I really, really need to do this. Finally sprung for a lifetime membership at LibraryThing. It's not that expensive, and I like their payment options (as in, it's optional how much you pay them), but it was an expense I couldn't justify when I wasn't working fulltime.

Anyhoo, I'd forgotten I'd bought Doomsday Book until I finally pulled all the books out of the collection of Borders bags I'd been accumulating. Not only that, but I read it! The first non-library book I've read in quite awhile.

The basic premise is it's the future and time travel is an academic thing. An undergraduate student goes back to the Middle Ages, meanwhile back at future Oxford, people start to get sick. So as you might imagine, there's a lot of Oxford academia, Medieval history, and medical information packed into this book.

It seemed a bit of a long read, not that any parts dragged particularly, but I was ready for it to finish before it actually did. I thought it was good, and interesting, and funny. Rather like the other couple of Willis' books that I've read.

However, it was frustrating in parts. There's a tech who has vital information, but he's sick. So between his disorientation, his periods of unconsciousness, and the hospital barring people from seeing him and whatnot, it takes a long, freaking time for the information he knows to finally come out and be put to use.

Also, one of the two main characters, the history professor, is the sort of protagonist who is running around all over the place, juggling a billion different balls, and basically being responsible for keeping everything together. At least, everything that matters to the main plot of the book. It's a tiring sort of book to read. Some of Robin Hobb's Farseer books are like this. You're left holding your breath. Is he going to forget something? Drop the ball? Collapse?

Meanwhile the second main character is running around in the past, eventually doing much the same thing. Is she going to slip and say something wrong and be hung as a witch? Is she going to drop one of her balls? Is she going to collapse?

So basically there's two types of reader suspense and tension going on that, while effective, also bug me. Though I will say Willis kept me guessing, and second-guessing myself, right up until the end.

Finally, on top of parts of the book being frustrating, parts of it were depressing. It could certainly have been more depressing, and would've been without the humor, but it's definitely not a light read.

Still, I can see why it won the Nebula and the Hugo Awards, and I'm glad it did. Well-written and well-researched, it deserved it.

I may have gotten around to reading this book eventually. I had seen Ha'Penny was on the list of novels being considered for the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards and borrowed it from the library, before realizing it was book two of a series. So I may or may not have been motivated to track down Farthing and read it, except that K had this idea of all of us reading and reviewing the same book, and M suggested this one.

Farthing is a British mystery set in the 1940's, but it's also an alternate history. Then there's a dash of gay interest thrown in. Taken separately, I wouldn't have been interested in this book, but all together, there's enough there to make it worth a read.

How well does it work as a mystery? I don't read a lot of mysteries, but it seemed to me to be rather dull and also rather obvious. We have two point of view characters, only one of which is the detective, so the other character has rather more access to information than the detectives usually get. Which means the reader knows more, and this reader is not an idiot.

In particular, there are a couple of chapters where the detective is just driving here and driving there and tracking down this bit of information that's needed and the writing there is quite uninspired.

How does it work as an alternate history? Again, I don't read a lot of alternate history -- or real history for that matter -- so I found it a little confusing. How much of the situation was true and accurate and how much was a what-if? The basic premise though, I believe, is that the UK signed a truce with Hitler to let him go on doing whatever he wanted elsewhere as long as he stayed out of Great Britain. Which, you may imagine, is not good news for the Jewish people in Europe. But on the face of it, it seems a good thing for the Brits. No more bombings, no more evacuations. The political climate is changing though. I don't think you'll be seeing socialized medicine in this UK.

How does it work as gay interest? Not interesting enough. One of the primary bi characters in the story is dead years before the story begins. The main character's lover never makes it on screen. He barely even spares a thought for him. So the gay interest is all political. Which is fine and all, but it would've been nice to see some affection, no matter how non-public and discreet it would need to have been.

So all in all, rather disappointing on all fronts. The two positives I will say about it are, one, that it was very readable, even in the more uninteresting of the chapters. It didn't feel like a slog. And, two, I found the two point of view characters interesting and likeable. I would read more with either of those characters, though I would be fervently hoping for some more interesting plots and scenes to come along.

If I were to give it stars out of five, I'd give it a very middle-of-the-road 3.

Harry Potter: Alere Flammas MUSH is having a Sorting next week. Log in and create a new first year for the full Hogwarts experience.

Harry Potter: Alere Flammas MUSH Website - http://www.alereflammas.org

Telnet or MU* Client address info:
alereflammas.org 9034
216.93.240.98 9034

Where do you get off calling the Incredible Hulk movie a 'blockbuster' before it's even hit theatres?

I have no intentions of seeing it. Hellboy II looked somewhat interesting, but still isn't something I'd go out of my way to see. The Batman movie looked dark and creepy -- yea yea, purists will love it for that, but it doesn't incline me to go see it. I would still like to see Hancock, but it may wait for DVD. Ditto Iron Man. Except.. wait... Hancock isn't out yet? I totally had the impression it had been out at least as long as Iron Man.... In that case, maybe I will still go see it. I shouldn't known a Will Smith movie was a July 4th movie.

Hrm.. I thought there was one more superhero movie coming out. But it wasn't the Punisher movie in December.

I don't think it was Wanted either that I was thinking of.

At any rate, give me another Spiderman, I'll be happy. Give me another Xmen, I'll be optimistic. Give me Wonder Woman and I'll be.. interested. Give me one of those gay superheroes and I'll watch it no matter how horrible it's reported to be.

In other news: "Charlie Jade" is a total snorer. Though kudos to Sci-Fi Channel for bringing us a Canadian/South African show I hadn't heard of. It's just that I hate hard-boiled detective narrators. :P

I wrote to Lifetime asking after "Blood Ties". Here's part of their response.

Thank you very much for your email regarding "Blood Ties," which will not be
returning to Lifetime.

Lifetime has heard your complaints in regards to the cancellation of "Blood Ties"
and we have never canceled a show without a great deal of consideration for you, the
viewers. However, "Blood Ties" did not meet the viewership requirements to stay on
air.

Okay, one, you only ran it once a week! Who does that anymore?

Two, you didn't even play the entire first season as far as I'm aware. Consistency and followthrough help.

Three, you totally would've had more viewers to start with if you'd kept Henry bi.

The letter then went on to say that they don't have the rights to make DVDs, but hey, you can purchase the episodes from Itunes! Or, you can watch the reruns on Lifetime Real Women (LRW), because doesn't everyone get all the random spinoff channels nowadays? And, whoopee, you can log onto their website to play games and stuphs!

And "There you can access the most up-to-date
information and read more about the show as well as participate in discussions with
other fans."

What up-to-date information? Why do I want to read more about the show? You cancelled it! There's nothing left to discuss except for the fact that you cancelled it!

I'm considering writing to the SciFi Channel. If they want to be more girl-friendly, then what better way than to revive a Lifetime show? :P

I was thinking about making some quip about jumped sharks, but I'll just get right to it.

Spoilers behind the cut.

Read the rest of this entry »

"Blood Ties" is a Lifetime show based on a series of books by Tanya Huff. I'm sure I've blogged about it before. The book series is good, the spinoff Smoke series is even better. The Lifetime series is passable, though I'm still annoyed with them for apparently making Henry (the vampire) straight. Clearly we can't be expecting Lifetime to be showing Torchwood anytime soon.

Anyway, was browsing around Oberon Games and found someone had done one of those seek and find games with a Blood Ties theme. I like that genre of game and while theme games are usually sucky, it can't be too bad, right? So I'm going to check it out.

Blood Ties: The Hidden Object-type Game

Usually I don't have much good to say about the SciFi Channel. But today, I'd like to say kudos on fixing the closed captioning issue on Doctor Who. From the excellent spelling of the unusual and even episode-specific names, I can only assume this closed captioned script is directly tied to the shooting script. Yet I haven't yet spotted any revisions, so it's even better than that.

So, thank you, SciFi, for not trying to reinvent the wheel by getting new closed captions from an American company who has no clue.

My only quibble is that I've noticed at least one dropped line. That could be a transmission thing.

And SciFi, don't think I'm letting you off the hook for chopping it up to insert commercials!

Eh, minor spoiler, so I'm not going to hide it behind a cut. Just close your eyes.

I might buy that the Daily Planet building has a cafeteria with kitchen. But why does it have a ginormous walk-in freezer?

Gotta love that Kryptonian is nothing but a font. Makes you think you're smart when you can read it.

Tolkein and Okrand they are not.

Ep #14 bonus though. Coreen from Blood Ties is in this episode. Knew she looked familiar.

Spoilers for Series 7 episode 13, yadda yadda.

Read the rest of this entry »

You know the drill. Spoilers ahead!

Read the rest of this entry »

Spoilers for this season of Smallville up until episode 11 behind the cut. Well, mostly just for episode 11. Unless you think it's a spoiler that Clark's survived this season.

Oopsie!

Read the rest of this entry »

Spoilers below the cut for the episode of Medium that just aired tonight.

Read the rest of this entry »