My roommate and I in college once had a big argument about books.
We both loved the “Apprentice Adept” trilogy by Piers Anthony. We bonded over those books, which was good because we didn’t always have a whole lot else in common.
Apprentice Adept Series Collection
But then, the unthinkable happened. Piers Anthony wrote a sequel.
My roommate was ecstatic. He raced out to the bookstore and brought it home. Held it before me like he’d claimed the grail. He cleared his calendar, scampered to the top of the loft, and buried himself in his sleeping bag and the book.
For me, it was like he’d just brought home a copy of the Venus de Milo, but with groovy arms cemented on, and painted to look realistic.
“That series…it was over. There was an ending,” I said to him, and he looked up from his book, startled.
“Yes! And now there’s more!” And he plunged back into the book, nestling deeper into his sleeping bag.
Over the ongoing days of his reading the book, it ate away at me. But the ending was beautiful. The entire reason for the story disappeared, closed, done forever. No possibility of sequel. The story was over. Everything was tied up in exactly the way that life truly and exactly never is. Happily ever after achieved, check the box and close the curtains.
All of this I argued at him, on and off as he read it.
And all he would say was, “You have to read it, though.”
Eventually, I did. At least the first 50 pages or so. But every word was like a slap in the face to your fairy godmother. I mean, come on…you told me everything worked out the way it worked on. And now, you’re saying, “Oops, I was wrong?”
I think Anthony even had an author’s note at the end of his book, where he said something like, “Hey, the fans wanted more.” I know an artist has to please the audience, but really, writing more Xanth, or something new, probably would have achieved the same thing.
I never finished the book. I sold it at a used bookstore some months later. Probably bought more Xanth novels with it.
I still have the original Apprentice Adept books. To me, they’re the only ones that exist in that series.
I guess I just like to believe in the “ever” in happily ever after. What about you?
If my blog looks a little odd for a bit, it’s because I’m working on a new design using the Elastic Editor. Fun to play with and I’m learning things, too.
On Stranger Tides is actually a piratey novel written by Tim Powers. I read a few months ago that Ron Gilbert had quoted it as being more of an inspiration for his Monkey Island computer games than the PotC attractions that most people thought were the inspiration.
Of course, technically you can’t copyright a title…
I’m not really certain whether to be excited or a bit disappointed about this. On the one hand, I have to admit to casting a bunch of the PotC actors in the movie in my head when I read the book. On the other hand, I really loved the book and I’m feeling that normal dread of them totally screwing with it to get it to fit into the PotC world. There’s been speculation that Depp’s Sparrow would be placed in the role of the protagonist of the book, Jack Shandy. I think it’s more likely it will be like the other movies, where Shandy will be the pirate wanna-be played by the Orlando Bloom replacement, and Sparrow will replace the Piratey mentor character, Davies.
It’s funny, I had heard a while back that Pirates 4 was going to have them going after the fountain of youth, and I was surprised when I read OST that the fountain was the object of their search. Go figure. I guess that’s further confirmation that they’re adapting it.
The book is well worth the read, if you want a head start on the movie. Powers is a great writer who really knows how to wrap you up in a larger-than-life adventure story.
First, they took on counting and the alphabet, and now, in a move surely planned to give all those ex-Bush administration people something to listen and learn from now that they’re not so busy, They Might Be Giants has a new album, entitled Here Comes Science.
I’m fascinated by neuroscience, by how the software that is our brain really works. I’m also fascinated by music, and how it can show how the brain works in a common way across cultures. Here’s a great example of that. Bobby McFerrin at the 2009 World Science Festival showing how a pentatonic scale is something kind of hard-wired into people. (I’m not quite sure how true the term “hard-wired” is, since different cultures have different musical scales — I’d be interested to see how this experiment worked in Japan, frinstance.)
Comic-Con coverage of the “LOST” panel starts tomorrow, but in advance, they’ve released some rich and juicy web site goodness in support of the Season 5 BluRay / DVD release. Earn a degree in the themes and mysteries of the show from Lost University. Or watch the classic ABC TV show, Mysteries of the Universe and learn about the hidden agenda behind the Dharma Initiative.
Got the movie Pi: Faith in Chaos from Netflix over the weekend, because once in a while I like to watch a movie that stretches my brain beyond the three dimensions it usually thinks in. It’s by acclaimed director Darren Aronofsky, whose The Fountain I also checked out just recently. The movies are not for the cinematically timid. They’re meant to blow your mind and make you think. Mostly, Pi made me think, “Wow, the guys who make LOST sure lifted a lot of stuff from this Aronofsky guy…” Pi’s got nosebleeds after flashy trips and significantly powerful numbers that are meant to save humanity. I kept waiting for Hurley to walk into the movie and say, “Dude, nice haircut. What are you doing with that drill?”
Ultimately, I think I’m tired of these deep, meaningful films. I like to have my mind stretched, which is why I read stuff like the books of Michio Kaku about string theory and quantum physics. But I think in my fiction I prefer to have something with a little more chocolate cream or baked apples, dude!
I swear, I used to have a blog around here somewhere. Probably lost under all this Facebook, Twitter, and various other social media stuff. I actually meant to update it recently, being as it was my birthday, and I was on vacation, and I had some really deep insights into the meaning of life and stuff, but then something shiny kind of zipped by and all of a sudden I had a new car (Honda Fit) and I was back at work trying to figure out where all my free time was.
Yes, you did hear right…new car. I really loved my 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid. It felt so green, despite the fact that it was blue. But it developed an ABS chip problem that was draining the battery. And when I looked back through my phonebook sized stack of warranty work (including replacing the hybrid battery pack), I realized that the same ABS chip problem precipitated months of regular trips to the dealership. Even my wife, as she shuffled through the pages in the stack sorting them, finally said, “Um, do you REALLY want to fix this clunker on your own dime?”
So we spent a few days of our vacation on car stuff. What Natasha calls my “most expensive birthday present ever.” But, in looking at the maintenance schedule for the Fit, it’s going to be a LOT cheaper to maintain than the hybrid. And it doesn’t have that gremlin guy from the Bugs Bunny cartoon under the hood with his little hammer.
Now that I’ve actually found this blog again, I think I might try to upgrade the look some. I’ve been meaning to finally get around to posting some more bad poetry and stuff. Hmmm…you might want to consider deleting your bookmarks…
