Category: Authors

circumlocutory pleonastic flibbertigibbet!

Having already exposed Chuck Palahniuk as a hack, Laura Miller, Salon‘s guardian of the literary citadel, now aims to dethrone H.P. Lovecraft (and neither Cthulhu nor a number of readers are pleased). C’mon now…is that really necessary? It’s not as if Lovecraft is some endlessly promoted sacred cow of the literati — he’s just an early 20th-century spinner of pulp yarns with some cachet among the fanboy nation, one with some very Cronenberg-like hang-ups and a better flair than most at evoking unfathomable dread. (Yes, his politics are indefensible, tho’ he did see the New Deal light near the end of his life.)

What with all the goofy adjectives and leaps of hyperbole, Lovecraft is obviously an easy caricature — so why bother? Miller seems to be something of a Tolkienite and generally sympathetic to fantasy writing, so her hit here is all the more surprising.

> Enjoy Poetry.


Some big, swollen, vaguely tumescent Hitchhiker’s news today — IGN obtains several pics of the Vogons (designed by the Henson Company — as one AICN wag put, “OMG! Rygel ate Harry!“), including this one at left of unwitting poetry-enthusiasts Arthur (Martin Freeman) and Ford (Mos Def) in the clutches of Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. (The Intergalactic Highway Bypass Planning Room is also worth a gander.) Very nice.

That Ol’ Janx Spirit.

“Being asked to do the voice of The Guide is like having your birthday on Christmas Day, discovering a winning lottery ticket in your stocking and having chocolate poured all over you.” Longtime Hitchhiker’s fan and Adams compatriot Stephen Fry talks about his role in the upcoming film. I’d say his inclusion is another touch of class that bodes well for this project.

Silicon Council.

Seen and taken from Cliopatria, Crooked Timber holds an online symposium on China Mieville and Iron Council, which includes informed essays by John Holbo, Belle Waring, Henry Farrell, Miriam Elizabeth Burstein, John Quiggen, and most notably, Mieville himself. I haven’t gotten through all of these yet, but there’s some really good stuff here, including Mieville’s nuanced analysis of the great Tolkien-Moorcock divide in fantasy writing. (I for one think that, when it comes J.R.R.T., Moorcock is full of it, as is Phillip Pullman.) Of Mieville’s books, I most enjoyed Perdido Street Station and most admired The Scar. Iron Council was a good read in fine phantasmagoric Mieville form, but I ultimately thought it was too self-conscious in its historical agenda — At times I felt I was reading J. Anthony Lukas’s Big Trouble by way of Mervyn Peake. I appreciate what Mieville was trying to do…I just don’t think he quite pulled it off.

Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes.

In anticipation of Hitchhiker’s, Disney and AICN have banded together to offer a spiffy and brutal Vogon office desk set — mug, stapler, and pen — to whomever composes a lousy poem worthy of the Vogons (or, for that matter, Paul Neil Milne Johnstone of Beehive Court, Redbridge.) The contest notwithstanding, the idea that all Vogon construction is based on the square is exactly the type of clever design flourish that gives me hope for this film. Update: Even more Hitchhiker’s news: ComingSoon talks with Hammer & Tongs (a.k.a. the producer and director) about the movie’s progress.

Arthur’s Amigos.

From the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of The Leopard,” Dark Horizons manages to procure the first two publicity stills from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. From left to right we have Zaphod (1-headed Sam Rockwell), Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), Marvin (Warwick Davis, with terrible pain in all the diodes down his left side), and Ford (Mos Def)…In case you were wondering, Arthur (Martin Freeman) is in the other one.

Ask Prosser about head.

BBC airs some behind-the-scenes footage from Hitchhiker’s Guide, which includes our first looks at Arthur (Martin Freeman), Ford (Mos Def), Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), and a big-hair Zaphod (Sam Rockwell)…They all look good, although I was thrown by Zaphod’s lack of second head (Apparently, it’s in his nose…yeah, I don’t get it either.)

His Dark Malcontent.

And, speaking of people screaming down the Murphometer, what the hell got into Philip Pullman? “The Lord of the Rings is not a serious book because it does not say anything interesting, or new, or truthful about the human condition,’ he told [author Jeanette] Winterson in an interview in the December issue of Harpers & Queen.” Hmm…really? Coulda fooled me. But, then again, I guess people have just found truth, meaning, and solace in Tolkien’s trilogy for fifty years now because it has elves and wizards and dragons and stuff. Look, LotR may not be Pullman’s cup of tea — Lord knows, the last book of His Dark Materials certainly wasn’t mine, what with all its Milton-wannabe sermonizing and anti-Narnia heavy-handedness — but I see no real need to badmouth Tolkien so emphatically (and indefensibly.) Pullman was probably just trying to gain some indy cred with the fantasy-dismissive Booker prize types, but from here his remarks just come off as sour grapes. I really liked The Golden Compass, but, come on now…What a prat.