one where i talk about getting SHRIEK...

that's right. i finally got it. but before that, allow me to rant.

writing SF, particularly of the 'sci' kind, tends to be something of a blind race for ideas, where the runners only learn about the competition after they or said competition have reached the finish line. this is true for all writing, of course, including all the other 'branches/tributaries' of the wild genre of SF, but sci-fi is far less forgiving.

of course, getting an idea published in a story doesn't give you a patent on that idea; neither does it guarantee that no-one will write anything that trumps your work even as they revolve around the same idea/s.

browsing Strange Horizons, i found out through their extensive reviews that Justina Robson's Natural History (one of the books i've been consciously trying to avoid to keep the book count on my 'to-read-as-soon-as-possible-and-definitely-before-i-die' list down) shares some major ideas with the one sci-fi story i've ever completed ('Generations', last heard of extensively here), which, idiot that i am and not having done my homework properly, i submitted to said online publication. admittedly, the treatments are very different, and the 'key themes' of the two works differ significantly, and i'm not saying that's why they rejected the story over at SH; nonetheless, though i'd known i wasn't exactly coming up with groundbreaking, brand-spankin' new SF concepts with my short, reading about Robson's work makes my short feel all the more lackluster.

ah well. it's not all bad. at least it got me to finally search for an excerpt of Natural History, which i found over at Powell's books... and to realize that this is just the sort of SF i truly, utterly dig.

which launches me on the next bit in my ramble.

Mabel and i had been planning on catching The Golem at the 3rd German Silent Film Fest since we learned of it a couple weeks ago. since it was salary day for me, i also used our trip to the mall as an excuse to hunt for Natural History. i imagined i'd go right to the SF section, find the book (and possibly the sequel, Living Next Door to the God of Love), pay for it and get out.

fortunately for me, they didn't have a copy of the book, so i thought i'd browse the new titles section.

and there i found Shriek: An Afterword in all it's hardbound glory. i'm pretty much done with ecstatic, epiphanic, whatever you call them moments, so i fairly calmly snatched it up, walked over to the cashier and forked over my cash. so yes, Jeff VanderMeer's first 'proper' novel on Ambergris has hit local bookstores.

mind you, my expectations for this book are so high i couldn't possibly help but be utterly disappointed by it on first reading. unless Mr VanderMeer really is, as a friend of mine would put it, The Shit. we'll find out soon enough. i've already read the first 30 pages; so far, i find that the point-counterpoint style Mr VanderMeer has chosen is a bit distracting, tending to break the flow of his otherwise beautiful yet efficient prose. still, at this point, it amazes me how much i really do get the sense of one writer (Janice Shriek) having written the main body of the text, while a second (Duncan Shriek) has inserted comments into the first's manuscript 'after the fact.'

oh yes, tickets were sold-out for The Golem when we got there, so, no, we didn't get to see it. i was really looking forward to the odd blend of the film and Drip's music, but, well, what can you do?

it still makes me wonder how they decided on Drip to score a German Expressionist silent film on a Kabbalistic myth set in the 16th century, particularly given the other films in this particular film fest, and though i have no idea at the moment how it worked out, i raise my hat to the person who came up with such a twistedly delicious idea.