Archives for 2012
Double Vision — Tricia Sullivan
Double Vision
Tricia Sullivan
377 pages
published in 2005
Karen “Cookie” Orbach’s life seems fairly mundane when looked at from the ouside: she hasa job with the Foreign Markets Research Division at Dataplex Corp, does karate as a hobby and a weightloss exercise, has no boyfriend or partner but does has a cat, eats too much out of stress and for comfort, reads a lot of science fiction and fantasy. The thing is, Cookie is psychic and while she did offer her services to the police, who believes an overweight Black woman reading too much Anne McCaffrey? Luckily Dataplex did see her potential and engaged her as a Flier, somebody who can see what’s happening in the Grid, an alien world Cookie can see when she watches television, where see can monitor the progress of the military expedition there and work as a reconnaissance flier for Machine Front, which coordinates the offensive.
Cookie’s mundane even boring life stands in shrill contrast to the dangerous glamour of the Grid. Despite being only a passive observer there, it is much more real to her, much more interesting. It matters, while her routine life outside of it doesn’t. It’s a feeling that any science fiction or fantasy fan can recognise, that idea that whatever fantasy world floats your boat is more important than what happens in real life, but for Cookie that fantasy world is real — or is it?
#$@&! Manara
I don’t understand people who thinks this is a nice drawing. That’s not the Scarlet Witch, that’s the bog standard Manara woman cosplaying her, with her far too long legs, strange breasts, porn face and all.
Manara has always annoyed me to be honest, as I never understood why he is so popular or respected. He’s a decent draughtsman, but no more than that, who has specialised in really quite dodgy softcore stroke books. An invisible man rapes women until they like it, or a scientist implants a device in the brain of the woman who rejected him to turn her into a slut but it turns out the device doesn’t work and she really is a slut; not very feminist or sex positive and worse, all you get to see is some tit and arse. It’s just gutless and boring and to see the same strange fake orgasmic expressions on Marvel superheroines is just offensive.
But then Marvel thought Greg Land was a good artist too.
CPL 593H
I’m slightly too young to have known Roxy Music as anything else but that band wot did “Avalon” or not think of Bryan Ferry as an aging creepster, but Sandra had been just the right age for glam rock in general and Roxy in particular. Roxy was the first great band of her generation, some years before punk, coming from but not actually having been a part of the whole hippie/psychedalic rock movement. Did you realise they’re forty years old this year?
Yes, I know. A couple of decades and all those small differences between rock movements aren’t all that important anymore but to music nerds, which Sandra never was. That sort of obsessive compulsiveness cataloging and categorising is usually more of a male pursuit anyway (certainly was in our hosuehold). She just liked the music that she liked, had a keen sense of why she liked certain bands or genres, but no desire to become all stamp collecting about it…
And this was her favourite Roxy Music song.
Books read Augustus
I thought I had read more books this month, but I come to only seven in total. I blame work as well as my continuing addiction to Football Manager. Hey, Plymouth Argyle won’t win its fit Premiership championship in row on its own, no will it?
Britain’s War Machine — David Edgerton
Exploding the myth that Britain went unprepared into World War II, or couldn’t keep up with the Axis or its larger allies during it.
Double Vision — Tricia Sullivan
An interesting failure this, a mindfuck novel written in 2005 but set in 1984. Cookie Orbach is a psychic, or at least that’s what she believes she is, who watches the Grid, an alien planet she can only observe through watching television. But is it real, or is her talent being exploited for much baser purposes than she imagines?
The Black Opera — Mary Gentle
A freethinking opera writer has to write the best opera he has ever created to save the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies from a miracle.
The Moving Toyshop — Edmund Crispin
Somehow I don’t think this was an entirely serious detective novel. Made me laugh out loud in a couple of places. Watch out for the cameo appearance by a certain Philip Larkin.
From Egypt to Babylon — Paul Collins
A visually orientated history of the Bronze Age in the Middle East and Near Asia. Lots of gorgeous pictures, decent overview of the history there.
The Saxon Shore — Valerie A. Mansfield
Much more limited in scope is this, looking at the reality of what might have been the “Saxon Shore”, mentioned in just one surviving Late Roman document. I’ve been interested in this for a while and found this handbook in a bookstore in Plymouth earlier this year.
The Jewel in the Skull — Michael Moorcock
I’ve had the graphic novel adaptation Jim Cawthorne did in the seventies for ages, but only recently bought the novel. First in years I’ve read a proper Moorcock fantasy novel.