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In reading to The Daughter at night, we’ve recently started to read chapter books a bit at a time, each evening, as opposed to the single-volume storybooks that were the rule until then. This has opened up lots of new vistas for reading, and it’s really rejuvenated a time of night that had for a while felt more like a chore than a treasured portion of our daily routine. I’ve generally tried to choose books that are slightly above her reading level, so as to keep her challenged and exposed to new stuff, and I’ve tried to choose books thatDown the rabbit hole….

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Some lazy linkage for a snowy Thursday evening: :: Lynn Sislo hasn’t posted in several days. As she lives in Oklahoma, I assume that this is due to the ice storm they had in those parts. I hope she’s back online soon. :: Do check out this wonderful article about visual injokes in Pixar’s movies. I love stuff like this. :: I suppose I should start reading Terry Pratchett sometime soon. He has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. :: When I become Supreme Ruler of Teh Universe, my first decree will be that all gas stations shall be one-way only, andDown the rabbit hole….

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part onepart two Continuing our re-imagining of The Phantom Menace, we are now at the droid invasion of Naboo and the rescue of the Queen. Before I begin, a couple of points that have occurred to me since I posted the first two installments of this series: :: The words “Roger Roger!” should never be uttered by a battle droid or anybody else. First, “Roger” as a response to a command is way too Earth-reminiscent for a Star Wars movie. Second, “Roger Roger!” makes me think of the classic scene in Airplane!. You know the scene I mean. All weDown the rabbit hole….

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part one As we continue fixing The Phantom Menace, we have reached the point where Qui Gon and Obi Wan have escaped death on the Trade Federation ship and are sneaking down to the surface of Naboo. There’s a scene where Queen Amidala speaks to Nute Gunray, and this scene is followed by the Queen conferring with her highest counselors. I would change none of this. I like the mystery here as it’s unfolding: the Queen’s belief that the ambassadors have arrived and commanded the Federation to make settlement, while the Federation insists that the ambassadors have never arrived. Likewise,Down the rabbit hole….

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Time to catch up on some recent reading I’ve done: :: As research for a short story I finished drafting a few weeks ago, I read a fascinating book called Stradivari’s Genius: Five Violins, One Cello, and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection by Toby Faber. This is exactly what the title suggests: an examination of the violin making of Antonio Stradivari, the great Cremonese master whose hand produced stringed instruments that have never been surpassed in quality despite the fact that Stradivari died in 1737. I was most interested in the early parts of the book, the ones that dealDown the rabbit hole….

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Long-time readers will know that I am a member of that terribly small, but incredibly zealous, band of folk: those who admire and enjoy the Star Wars prequel trilogy. I enjoyed, and continue to enjoy, each one of them, and I refuse to view them as disastrous films done in by George Lucas’s money-grubbing hubris. The Daughter and I just watched The Phantom Menace this past weekend, and damned if I still can’t see what it is about that movie that everybody hates with such fury. But while I do openly admit to loving these films – long posts aboutDown the rabbit hole….

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Writer at work, originally uploaded by Jaquandor. Stop botherin’ me. I’m writin’ here. Sorry about the dearth of posting the last few days, folks, but the week here at Casa Jaquandor got a bit unexpectedly busy over the last few days. Not bad busy, just a whole lot of stuff that ended up on the plate and being more time-consuming than I’d figured at the time. Plus, I’ve been fending off a minor head cold. Regular posting should begin again tomorrow. By way of a progress report: I’ve been doing a lot more fiction writing lately — I finished aDown the rabbit hole….

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I keep meaning to post about various books I’ve read lately, and I keep putting off the post. So now I’ve got several such posts to write! First, three recent reads on the Space Opera front: :: Dread Empire’s Fall: The Praxis, by Walter Jon Williams. The basic idea behind the Dread Empire’s Fall trilogy is that much of the galaxy has been conquered and brought into the Empire of the Shaa, a fairly mysterious alien race, under a guiding philosophy called “the Praxis”. But as The Praxis opens, the last of the Shaa rulers is about to die, whichDown the rabbit hole….

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Time, I guess, for a little SF book blogging! :: Here’s one of the great all-time opening paragraphs: This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard dying…but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice…but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extre,es, a fascinating century of freaks…but nobody loved it. When I note that SF has had to scrape and fight for every tiny morsel of respect it’s ever been grudgingly offered by the Keepers of the Literary Canon, and I contrast thatDown the rabbit hole….

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A week or so ago I finished reading Deathstalker by Simon R. Green as part of my space opera obsession. This book was a mixed bag for me — sufficiently positive that I’ll grab the next book at some point, but since I know the series has six or seven books in it, the quality will have to improve a bit if I’m going to commit to the whole thing. As our story begins, there’s a guy named Owen Deathstalker who lives on some backwater planet, where he’s happy to go along his everyday life and not worry too muchDown the rabbit hole….