Friday, June 18, 2004
The Murder of Angels ARC auctions are over. My thanks to everyone who bid. You were all extremely generous. I do hope that you enjoy the novel.
I'm not at all sure how I feel about this blonde thing. This gradual blonding thing. I was fairly happy with it yesterday evening, but this morning, well, I'm just not sure. Here are a couple of photos:
Perhaps I'll just dye it all black again.
I have some proofreading I need to get done before the trip. "Night Story, 1973" for The Last Pentacle of the Sun, and it seemed as though there was something else, but now I can't remember what. Frell, that's annoying. My unreliable memory, I mean. I know that I need to proof the galleys of The Dry Salvages as soon as I get back, but it seemed as though there was another story to be proofed before I leave.
Ah, well. I shall remember, or I shan't.
Last night, while Spooky dyed her hair, I read Theodore Sturgeon's superbly disturbing short story, "The Professor's Teddy Bear." It's possibly the creepiest thing I've read since House of Leaves, and it reminded me what a very fine writer Sturgeon was. It also set me thinking about one of the reasons that I write. It's a form of time travel. Here's this story that Sturgeon first published in Weird Tales way back in 1948, sixteen years before I was born. And last night, fifty-six years after it was originally published, I sat down and read "The Professor's Teddy Bear," and a dead man whom I never met gave me a chill that'll be with me for days. I can only hope that someone who will be born sixteen years from 2004 will pick up a book with something I've written this year — "Alabaster," or "Houses Under the Sea," or "The Daughter of the Four of Pentacles" — that they'll pick up one of those stories in 2060, fifty-six years after it was written and first published and feel something. It may be the most than we can hope for in the way of immortality. And I do shamelessly hope for immortality, as do most mortal things.
I really want to finish The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay before we leave on Tuesday evening, but I don't know if I'm going to make it. We played four hours last night, and we've reached (I think) the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth checkpoint (I think there are thirty-six, total). Riddick has planted Jagger Vallance's bomb and released the aliens, and is now trying to find his way to the spaceport. This game just rocks. I think my favorite moment from last night was when I kicked out a ventilation grate, misjudged my position, and fell a good twenty feet to the floor below. Fortunately, there was a guard to break my fall. I'd have had to kill him anyway, but, this way, my graceless screw up lent a much needed moment of humour to relieve the tension. For the most part, I'm impressed with the voice acting in this game. It's much better than average, and there are some great lines. For example, when Riddick gets the bomb from an inmate named Jupiter, whom he tells "I just play the hand I'm dealt. Then I cheat." Nice. I still think it would have worked better as a stritcly third-person game, but that's how I feel about almost everything.
1:00 PM
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