From Jane’s, war of the wing-men:

Paratroopers could fly 200km with new wings system

Crush, Kill, Destroy: Scientific American video of DARPA’s new Crusher robot:

RoboCrusher

And from the sublime to the ridoctopus, a device to make frankfurts look like cephalopods:

http://www.octodog.net/

Jason Nahrung interviews Justine Larbalestier about writing, travelling, and her new books Magic Lessons and Daughters of Earth.

She laments the limitations on Daughters of Earth which meant not including stories by luminaries such as Suzy McKee Charnas, Ursula K. Le Guin and Joanna Russ.

I’m intrigued by this and would like to know what the limitations were — and if the difficulty was simply a matter of space, does it leave open the possibility of a second Daughters of Earth collection?

The cover of Daughters of Earth, by the way, is a gorgeous piece by our own Cat Sparks. You need to see it in the full trade paperback size to do it justice, so consider this a teaser.

 

I have a fascination for the First World War. With Simon Brown, I co-wrote a story called “No Man’s Land” and the forthcoming Eidolon anthology includes “Hieronymus Boche,” both stories set in the trenches. Simon and I also have a number of collaborative works in progress set in and immediately after the war. I have picked up a few pieces of WWI memorabilia — not medals, which seem to me tasteless to acquire as a private collector, or even worse, the death telegrams that can be found on eBay from time to time — but odd items like postcards, letters, scrapbooks, a broken watch, a match box carved out of a bullet casing, and the most transporting of all, an officer’s whistle. These nubbins of history are not the sort of thing most collectors desire but I am after different quarry. Because I write about the war, my small collection is meant to help me understand how the soldiers spoke, what they wrote, the feel of the things they held in their hands, and the actual sound of the whistle that ordered them over the top. I have blown the whistle. It felt like I was waking the dead from the Flanders mud. I only blew it once.

I believe that the First World War tilled the field of modern horror. But that’s an argument for another time. Today’s issue is how the War has been recorded by historians in some of the better-known books on the subject.

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I gave a talk at the Sydney Writers Festival yesterday. It was on writing for young people, a fairly elastic topic, so I chose to talk about an author (of books for adults) whose work was very influential on my own writing, an author that I actually met briefly back in 1983. As his books are now extremely hard to get and he is largely forgotten, I thought I might write a short piece on him here, giving some key information about the man and his work. At the festival I told the story of how I actually came to visit Irskine Henry in his house in North Devon, but as I will probably be repeating that anecdote elsewhere I am only going to give a brief description here of what I know about the man and his work.

I first encountered his books when I was 12 or 13 (in the mid 1970s), and at that time you could still get his books from the library and they occasionally turned up in second-hand bookstores. Though none of Henry’s books were specifically written for children or teenagers, they were all eminently accessible adventure stories that also had additional layers of meaning, so that while I always wanted to read them in a single sitting, I would also think about them long afterwards as well, and they could easily be re-read, delivering a somewhat different experience each time. I still re-read my favourites every couple of years, particularly The Return of the Elephant, which is not about an animal but a ship called ‘The Elephant’.

Though I actually did meet Henry for about five minutes some twenty-three years ago, I have never been able to find out much about him. Most of the books of his that I own have no biographical information at all, anywhere. Only his last two books have a couple of lines on the inside back dustjacket flap, which simply read “Irskine Henry lives in North Devon. He is the author of a number of acclaimed novels.” The few established facts about Irskine Henry I have repeated below come almost entirely from a brief obituary that appeared in The Exeter Express-Herald on 26 May 1983 (without a byline) and from a reference work on British authors, the extremely useful One Thousand Writers, Four Thousand Books edited by Richard Beckfoot and published in paperback by Skua Books in 1971.

Irskine Henry was born Henryk Wojciech Bobrowski, in Ustka on the Baltic coast. Like Joseph Conrad, he was a Pole who joined the British merchant navy (though his years at sea were in the age of steam, from 1911 to 1926) and like Conrad when he began to write Bobrowski chose an English nom de plume – except that unlike Conrad he chose it when his English was still a bit shaky, so he spelt ‘Erskine’ with an initial ‘I”.

Henry’s first published works were travelogues and short guides to various obscure ports and close inland destinations, primarily on the west coast of Africa. Published in London magazines like The Pictorial Gaze and A Briton’s View, the articles were illustrated with Henry’s own sketches, for he was an accomplished if not inspired artist, particularly in architectural drawing. This led some later commentators on his life and work to speculate that his father or some relative was an architect or perhaps a shipbuilder. However this remains mere guesswork, as Henry never wrote or spoke about his family and no records are extant.

Irskine Henry’s first novel was published in 1929 by the firm Hoode & Carroll, who would go on to publish all but two of his nine novels. Most of the books were very successful in their time, and went through multiple printings. It is very rare to find a first edition of any of the pre-World War II books in good condition. In order of publication, the books are:

ALL QUIET AT MIDNIGHT, 1929

STORM-BIRDS IN SUMMER, 1930

THE RETURN OF THE ELEPHANT, 1933

THOSE CRUEL CARES, 1935

THE PRESERVED EAR OF ROBERT JENKINS, 1936

ONE STRAND TO CROSS, 1938

A RIDICULOUS NOTION, 1939

HOW BEATS THE DRUM? (ERWIN LTD), 1947

THE DREADBURG VASE (ERWIN LTD), 1949

I’ve read all of them and can recommend them all, but my three absolute favourites are The Return of the Elephant, All Quiet at Midnight and One Strand to Cross. Search them out – you’ll be glad you did.

© Garth Nix 2006

Nature’s warning signs are bright red and yellow patches. Hollywood has its own warning signs and Eight Below fair sparkles with them. It’s a post-1970 Disney production; it stars Paul Walker; it is about dogs; it was “inspired by a true story” as opposed to “based on a true story” (the distinction matters); it is reworked from a highly-regarded Japanese film but takes great liberties; and its posters describe it as “THE MOST AMAZING STORY OF SURVIVAL, FRIENDSHIP AND ADVENTURE EVER TOLD.” Hyperbole in capital letters is the curare frog of cinema.

Unexpectedly, Eight Below is not only non-toxic, it is quite a nourishing little meal. While far from perfect, Eight Below is still eminently watchable, and belongs to a class of film that has almost disappeared from our screens: the adventure movie. Like suspense films, the adventure genre has largely degenerated into action, usually dotted by self-consciously inventive obscenities, ridiculously large explosions, and lashings of CGI absurdity. Eight Below has no swearing, not a single explosion, and its one CGI scene does not live up to current standards of realism but is far more effective than most because it is so well directed that one’s sense of belief is carried by the intensity of the story that unfolds rather than the intensity of the graphic experience.

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I never say no to a free bookmark, yet somehow when I need one, all I can find is a dog eared train ticket or a bit of lint from my coat pocket. My house is full of bookmarks stacked in little piles, just waiting for the opportunity to mark my page. There’s a handful of the darn things in my desk drawer here, so apropos of nothing I thought I’d write a review of them and rate them according to aesthetics, functionality and durability.

1. Bookaleidoscope: children’s book week 1997

This one just plain irritates me with its cheery squiggled font and utter outdatedness. The flipside is chokkers with books I am never likely to read, with titles such as Sharon, Keep Your Hair On! and Don’t Pat the Wombat! Also, its about 3mm longer than all the other bookmarks so it doesn’t stack well.

2. Hello Kitty

Gotta love Hello Kitty, especially as this kitty is wearing a purple space suit and drifting amongst a field of bubbles. Below sits the obligatory Kitty poetry:

Well you came
and opened me and now
there’s so much more
I see and so, by the way

Below the poem are two fluffy bunnies fucking. This bookmark comes with a tassel and rates highly despite being pastel-coloured and printed on thin paper stock.

3. Elizabeth’s Bookshop

This is a dull and grubby-looking thing assuring me that yes, there is a real Elizabeth! Like I believe for one minute that the smiling face of Elizabeth didn’t come out of a stock image library. This bookmark would get more points if I hadn’t spilled so much food on it already. I think I better put it in the bin.

4. The HarperCollins suite

HC pumps out bookmarks at the same rate that tiny countries pump out large colourful stamps depicting non existent space programs. I swear there are more HC bookmarks than actual titles – there’s at least 10 in every room of this house. Here I have Geodesica Ascent, which flips over to reveal an ad for more HC bookmarks. It loses points for having too much lime green on the front and an ‘80s geometric vibe.

5. Kid robot sticker

OK, so technically speaking this one isn’t a bookmark, it’s a sticker depicting Kid Robot’s adorable chain smoking bunny, but so long as the adhesive back remains safely covered it has more chance of being used as a bookmark than many of the other items in my desk drawer.

6. Shadowed Realms

This is a fine piece of craftsmanship. Slimline, at least 300 dpi, celloglazed and dark enough in hue so as not to distract me from what I’m reading. Full marks Shane and Angela.

7. Agog! Fantastic Fiction

Christ on a bike, there must have been a time when I considered this one to be a stylish piece of design, seeing as I made it myself. 2002 was a time of lamination. You know how it is… stuck in a boring job, brightening your day by abusing photocopier privileges and then one day a shiny new laminating machine appears on the desk. Within a week, every item in reach was wrapped in plastic. This bookmark looks like crap but the crisp, plastic coated edges are useful for cutting cocaine.

8. The way of the Kabbalah

This one fails as a bookmark utterly by way of distraction: its far more interesting than most of the books I’ve read this year. The top half is embedded with a curious multi-coloured diagram inset with numbers and letters. Below, a key hints at such things as ‘Hokhmah’, ‘Gevurah’ and ‘Hod’. Below the key, at the very bottom is the helpfully positioned word ‘bookmark’. Just in case you got trapped in the mandala and couldn’t find your way out again.

9. A strip of US 20c stamps

I have a drawer full of these. Magic talismans. Symbols of hope in slender strips. Most of them come back to me like little boomerangs after I post them, affixed to rejection letters from US spec fic magazines.

10. Nick Evans ‘freelance theologian’ business card.

Again, technically not a bookmark, but being that it’s bright red and has a pyramid within an eye upon the front, it has every chance of being used as one. Just as you never know when you might need a bookmark, you never know when a freelance theologian might come in handy. We live in troubled times, after all.

So the verdict? The winner is number 6 – Shadowed Realms. It’s everything I want a bookmark to be and nothing that I don’t. I have three of them filched from the last con: two back ups in the drawer and one wedged comfortably between pages 376 and 377 of Jeff Long’s The Descent.

In today’s newspaper, a short letter contains what may well be the best mixed metaphor I have ever come across.

…[A]n additional reason for Labor’s sinking ship is the overweight trade union dinosaur welded to its hull. [The Australian, Friday May 19, 2006, page 15]

Thank you for that, E. J. Ash of Brisbane, Qld. For sheer visual impact, it’s hard to beat. I invite others to contribute their favourite examples in the comments. One rule: the metaphor must be genuine. That is, it should be a real piece of writing or speech rather than a parody or a deliberately mixed metaphor for comic purpose, and it should be referenced where possible. I am tempted to exclude Bushisms on the principle that it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. But what the heck. Sometimes fish in a barrel need shooting.

Title explanation for non-Australians and Australians of another vintage: When I was growing up in Melbourne, we children used to save up our 10 cent pieces and after school we would head to the local milk bar for a “bag of mixed lollies.” The milk bar had already made up bags in certain sizes, arranged by cost, and placed tempting rows of the little white paper bags in the display counter. The bags were tied at the top by a loop of coloured string and had been made up by the milk bar owners themselves every morning with an assortment of jelly beans, jelly babies, jaffas, honeycomb chocolates and whatever else was at hand. Twenty cent bags were the best, but you rarely had that sort of cash in pocket. In case you were wondering, I am talking about a time when I was shocked to see petrol at 20c/litre and you could buy lunch and a drink at the milk bar for less than 50 cents.

So this is a Great Age of TV Drama, with certain shows we could all name (and then argue the value of) achieving a high level of creative brilliance. Must be wonderful for the sponsors, eh?

Unfortunately DVD technology and boxed sets of TV shows have killed any tolerance I (and no doubt others) might have had for sitting through even decent shows when they’re interrupted every ten minutes by dreadful commercial “spots”. So the Monguls of Marketing are faced with a dilemma: how to create an audience for advertising. They’ve tried MTV-style funkiness, surreal oddness, CGI extravagance, rank amateurishness (come to Wollongong and watch the regional ads sometime), helpful hints, catchy jingles and, of course, celebrity endorsement. The first three are mainly useful for cobbling together “World’s Greatest/Sexiest/Most Pretentious Ads”-type programs, and gaining an industry rep for the agencies. “Rank amateurishness” leaves you so brain damaged you lose the capacity to exit the house, let alone buy anything, while “helpful hints” totally lack credibility when some down-to-earth (though attractive) handywoman advices you to use a revolutionary cleaning product that has already failed to deal with the soap-scum on your shower door (especially that damn image of the Virgin).

In the past, “jingles” have worked pretty well, but the agencies seem to have totally lost the knack of creating the sort of fatuous and creatively inane ditties that get in your head and refuse to leave no matter what. All the memorable jingles (”We’re happy little Vegemites as bright as bright can be… we all enjoy our vegemite for breakfast, lunch and tea…” or “Louie the fly, I’m Louie the fly, straight from rubbish bin to you… Spreading disease with the greatest of ease…”) are decades old.

That leaves “celebrities”. Celebs certainly retain their drawing power in the “women’s” magazines and in tearoom chat. Seems to me, though, there’s a basic problem and it’s this: our current celebrities lack the crucial element — talent that resides in themselves rather than in scripts, good directors or CGI eye-candy. Those celebs most in the public eye are there because of their scandal value or are simply of the “famous for being famous” variety. Where are the celebs with the resonant voice, the authoritiative and entertaining presence, the horror film background?

Well, check out this one from the past.

Why don’t we have celebs like Vinny any more?

Damien Broderick will be guest on the the ASif! forum for the next 14 days.

If you have any questions for the fiction editor of COSMOS magazine (and widely published writer, editor, critic, and academic), join the circus at ASif!’s Focus on Damien Broderick thread.

To learn more about the ever-fascinating Damien, check out the Damien Broderick Wikipedia page.

From the Skeptical Inquirer, via LiveScience.com, comes the story of a “circus crowd” that claims to have seen a miraculous apparition of the Virgin Mary, supposedly marking the anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II.

For those of you with less “pious imaginations”, look at the photo at http://www.livescience.com/othernews/050516_Viaduct_Virgin.html, and tell me: exactly what part of the Virgin Mary does this look like to you?

EDITORIAL NOTE: The link above has a very small photo of the “Virgin of the Viaduct.” Here is a larger image from CBSNews.com. [CL]