Blurred Line

Blech.

Just got home after working from 7:30 in the morning until nine at night...for the second day in a row. And, to add insult to injury, I get to do it again on Saturday. It looks like I'll be hitting 60 hours for the week, so at least I'll have a nice paycheque.

Anyway, more posts later when I have time/energy.

Pretty tired tonight after my first shift at my new part-time job. It's in retail and, having worked in offices for all of my other jobs, being on my feet for eight straight hours is a rather new (and not entirely enjoyable) experience for me. On the other hand, with my two jobs combined, I'll now be working about 50 hours a week and really raking in some halfway decent money. So, I guess I can afford to buy myself some comfy shoes.

Also, Stumble Down the Mountainside is already available on Amazon, so check it out if you're interested in getting a copy.

After years of hearing William Gibson plug Jack Womack, I jumped at the chance to buy Womack's Ambient series (with the exception of the second book, Terraplane), when I saw the books listed on BookCloseouts.com. The first book in the series, Ambient, follows Seamus O'Malley, bodyguard and right-hand man of Mister Dryden, who manages the world's most powerful corporation, Dryco. When Mister Dryden orders O'Malley to kill his father, who still retains ultimate control of Dryco, things begin to spiral out of control, thanks to the interference of Avalon, who's a sort of personal sex slave to Mister Dryden, and who O'Malley happens to be in love with. The book is set in a nightmarish future version of New York, where violence and chaos rule. Additionally, a significant portion of the population, called Ambients, are horrifically mutated thanks to radiation exposure.

This novel has garnered many comparisons to Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, due to its linguistic inventiveness. The Ambients speak a language that seems a collection of Shakespearean diction, slang, and religious mysticism -- it's odd to read for the first while, but once you settle in, it offers some of the book's best passages. Also, Mister Dryden and the corporate set tend to use "bizspeak" which appears to be a highly compressed language made up of declaratives and jargon. The book also echoes A Clockwork Orange in its violence -- of course, what would've been called "ultraviolence" in that book is pretty much small potatoes here. In comparison, the nightmarish qualities of this book have been taken to the extreme. If you can stomach the violence (one warning here: much of it is sexual and involves minors), the book is a great read, although the ending struck me as rather abrupt and the big "reveal" of Dryco's evil doings don't really seem connected to any of the events in the book. Still, though, it's a book I definitely won't shy away from recommending to fans of dystopic fiction.

Yep, that time's coming around again. NaNoWriMo kicks off in 45 days. I first did NaNo two years ago, but quit halfway through because I really liked what I had with Mass Romantic and didn't want the quality to suffer (in retrospect, I should have just kept going, because I've only written about 4000 words more of it since). Last year I didn't bother participating because I had a large pile of schoolwork to deal with, but this year will be the first where I can do NaNo without having to worry about the course readings and essays that hung over my head.

So, I'll be doing it. But not officially. The main reason behind this is that I feel I'm not quite at the level of writing a halfway-decent novel yet (and yes, I know quality isn't the point of NaNo, but nothing bums me out so much as writing a bunch of crap). So, since NaNo is for novelists only, you won't see me over on the official site. Instead, I'm planning to work on short stories. Whether that ends up being ten, twelve, fifteen, or more remains to be seen (although, frankly, I'd be content in pounding out just a couple). Either way, that's a pretty significant number of story ideas to come up with November, so the next six weeks are going to be brainstorming time.

Wish me luck...I'll need it.

Over at LibraryThing, they've got a cool new tool called Tag Mirror. To explain: on the site, you can tag books however you like (personally, I tag by genre). What Tag Mirror does is logs all the tags that other people have tagged the books in your library with. What you get, then, is an interesting look at what kind of reader you are. Click the image to see it in a larger format.

It's surprising to me that so few people are aware of this band. Their sound is about as mainstream as mainstream rock can possibly be and their songs seem tailored for the radio. So, just another unfortunate case of one of those talented bands toiling away in obscurity, I suppose. Anyhow, I mentioned that this band plays mainstream rock, which generally I'm not a big fan of (I haven't turned on a radio yet this calendar year, I don't think), but Driveblind have a little more talent, both musically and lyrically, than your typical mainstream band. Or, to steal from Allmusic.com's review of the album: Mainstream rock has gotten a bad rap over the years, which is understandable -- quite a lot of the music simply does not age well, or is completely disposable. And to add insult to injury, mainstream rock of the early 21st century appears to center primarily around one-hit wonders, who look for outside songwriting help and guidance to momentarily storm the charts. But then a group like Driveblind comes along, which shows that not all mainstream rock is as bland and predictable as you think.

If this song, my favourite from their album, catches your attention, be sure to pick up their CD. As always, just press ZAP on the player to start the song.

Just a few quick things for today:

First off, I note with some amusement and surprise that the book cover meme I made up is actually making its way around a little bit. It's even found its way to some blogs I've never come across before -- here, here, and here. Huh. Whoda thunkit?
Received the proof for Stumble Down the Mountainside today. Definitely the best looking book that Apodis has produced thus far.
School's back in this week. On my first trip back to campus after having graduated, it was tough for me to believe that I was ever that young.

Just wanted to post a quick review on William Gibson's latest. It's been drawing a lot of comparisons to Pattern Recognition, his last book, because both take place in present day and employ technologies that are feasible right now, not five or ten years from now. In my opinion, though, it has a lot more in common with All Tomorrow's Parties. The unfortunate part of this, however, is that it's not nearly as good a book as PR or ATP. The plot lacks any sort of tension and seems merely to be a device with which he can comment on society. He does make full use of this device and much of what he writes is insightful - but insight does not a novel make. As usual, his writing style is simply brilliant throughout (though there are a noticeable amount of clunky paragraphs this time around, usually having to do with characters putting on clothes or transferring things in and out of their pockets).

Overall, there's more than enough here to make the book interesting, but not a whole lot to make it engaging.

Was thinking the other day of a post I made sometime early last year (March 2006, upon closer inspection) and also, thanks to a couple of posts I've seen lately, about how memes get started. Not that I have anything insightful to say on the topic, but it did give me a great idea for a meme.

So, here's my somewhat half-hearted attempt at contributing a meme to the blogosphere: Go to the advanced book search on Amazon, type your first name into the Title field, and post the most interesting/amusing cover that shows up.

Why do I suggest this? Well, because I can pretty much guarantee that there's no way you'll beat mine.

That's right -- we of the Cavan breed are all about the leather cowboy gear and 70s porn moustaches. And when it comes to accessories, it just doesn't get any cooler than toting around drooping phallic symbols.


Profile Editor. Writer. 9-5er. Lord of the Dance. Blurredline.com Apodis Publishing Fusion Fragment cterrill(at)blurredline.com Buy Goodbye, Darwin Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format Buy Blurred Line Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format The Short Stuff "Learning Magic From Mint" - published May 2007 in Atomjack "Between Eternities" - published October 2005 at Speculative.ca "Smoke and Mirrors" - published June 2005 in Byzarium Submissions Log Total Subs: 25 Acceptances: 3 Rejections: 17 Withdrawals: 3 Subs Out: 2 Quality Blogs Scalzi's Whatever Dave's Blogography Bookslut The Struggling Writer SF Signal the0phrastus Paperback Writer Scribe's Writing Desk Nathan Bransford Lyons Literary LLC The World in the Satin Bag Book In The Oven The Word Perhaps We Learned Something... Words, etc. Archives March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 Et Cetera Cavan @ Last.fm Cavan @ LibraryThing Feeds Atom Feed RSS Feed	Thursday, September 27, 2007 - Work Blech. Just got home after working from 7:30 in the morning until nine at night...for the second day in a row. And, to add insult to injury, I get to do it again on Saturday. It looks like I'll be hitting 60 hours for the week, so at least I'll have a nice paycheque. Anyway, more posts later when I have time/energy. Cavan blogged at 9:52 PM \| 0 comments Monday, September 24, 2007 - Job #2 Pretty tired tonight after my first shift at my new part-time job. It's in retail and, having worked in offices for all of my other jobs, being on my feet for eight straight hours is a rather new (and not entirely enjoyable) experience for me. On the other hand, with my two jobs combined, I'll now be working about 50 hours a week and really raking in some halfway decent money. So, I guess I can afford to buy myself some comfy shoes. Also, Stumble Down the Mountainside is already available on Amazon, so check it out if you're interested in getting a copy. Cavan blogged at 11:03 PM \| 0 comments Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - Ambient After years of hearing William Gibson plug Jack Womack, I jumped at the chance to buy Womack's Ambient series (with the exception of the second book, Terraplane), when I saw the books listed on BookCloseouts.com. The first book in the series, Ambient, follows Seamus O'Malley, bodyguard and right-hand man of Mister Dryden, who manages the world's most powerful corporation, Dryco. When Mister Dryden orders O'Malley to kill his father, who still retains ultimate control of Dryco, things begin to spiral out of control, thanks to the interference of Avalon, who's a sort of personal sex slave to Mister Dryden, and who O'Malley happens to be in love with. The book is set in a nightmarish future version of New York, where violence and chaos rule. Additionally, a significant portion of the population, called Ambients, are horrifically mutated thanks to radiation exposure. This novel has garnered many comparisons to Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, due to its linguistic inventiveness. The Ambients speak a language that seems a collection of Shakespearean diction, slang, and religious mysticism -- it's odd to read for the first while, but once you settle in, it offers some of the book's best passages. Also, Mister Dryden and the corporate set tend to use "bizspeak" which appears to be a highly compressed language made up of declaratives and jargon. The book also echoes A Clockwork Orange in its violence -- of course, what would've been called "ultraviolence" in that book is pretty much small potatoes here. In comparison, the nightmarish qualities of this book have been taken to the extreme. If you can stomach the violence (one warning here: much of it is sexual and involves minors), the book is a great read, although the ending struck me as rather abrupt and the big "reveal" of Dryco's evil doings don't really seem connected to any of the events in the book. Still, though, it's a book I definitely won't shy away from recommending to fans of dystopic fiction. Cavan blogged at 9:55 PM \| 0 comments Sunday, September 16, 2007 - NaNo Plans Yep, that time's coming around again. NaNoWriMo kicks off in 45 days. I first did NaNo two years ago, but quit halfway through because I really liked what I had with Mass Romantic and didn't want the quality to suffer (in retrospect, I should have just kept going, because I've only written about 4000 words more of it since). Last year I didn't bother participating because I had a large pile of schoolwork to deal with, but this year will be the first where I can do NaNo without having to worry about the course readings and essays that hung over my head. So, I'll be doing it. But not officially. The main reason behind this is that I feel I'm not quite at the level of writing a halfway-decent novel yet (and yes, I know quality isn't the point of NaNo, but nothing bums me out so much as writing a bunch of crap). So, since NaNo is for novelists only, you won't see me over on the official site. Instead, I'm planning to work on short stories. Whether that ends up being ten, twelve, fifteen, or more remains to be seen (although, frankly, I'd be content in pounding out just a couple). Either way, that's a pretty significant number of story ideas to come up with November, so the next six weeks are going to be brainstorming time. Wish me luck...I'll need it. Cavan blogged at 7:16 PM \| 2 comments Friday, September 14, 2007 - My Library, In Tags Over at LibraryThing, they've got a cool new tool called Tag Mirror. To explain: on the site, you can tag books however you like (personally, I tag by genre). What Tag Mirror does is logs all the tags that other people have tagged the books in your library with. What you get, then, is an interesting look at what kind of reader you are. Click the image to see it in a larger format. Cavan blogged at 4:48 PM \| 0 comments Thursday, September 13, 2007 - Driveblind - "Raised at Midnight" It's surprising to me that so few people are aware of this band. Their sound is about as mainstream as mainstream rock can possibly be and their songs seem tailored for the radio. So, just another unfortunate case of one of those talented bands toiling away in obscurity, I suppose. Anyhow, I mentioned that this band plays mainstream rock, which generally I'm not a big fan of (I haven't turned on a radio yet this calendar year, I don't think), but Driveblind have a little more talent, both musically and lyrically, than your typical mainstream band. Or, to steal from Allmusic.com's review of the album: Mainstream rock has gotten a bad rap over the years, which is understandable -- quite a lot of the music simply does not age well, or is completely disposable. And to add insult to injury, mainstream rock of the early 21st century appears to center primarily around one-hit wonders, who look for outside songwriting help and guidance to momentarily storm the charts. But then a group like Driveblind comes along, which shows that not all mainstream rock is as bland and predictable as you think. If this song, my favourite from their album, catches your attention, be sure to pick up their CD. As always, just press ZAP on the player to start the song. Cavan blogged at 4:52 PM \| 0 comments Monday, September 10, 2007 - In Brief Just a few quick things for today: First off, I note with some amusement and surprise that the book cover meme I made up is actually making its way around a little bit. It's even found its way to some blogs I've never come across before -- here, here, and here. Huh. Whoda thunkit? Received the proof for Stumble Down the Mountainside today. Definitely the best looking book that Apodis has produced thus far. School's back in this week. On my first trip back to campus after having graduated, it was tough for me to believe that I was ever that young. Cavan blogged at 2:06 PM \| 0 comments Wednesday, September 05, 2007 - Spook Country Just wanted to post a quick review on William Gibson's latest. It's been drawing a lot of comparisons to Pattern Recognition, his last book, because both take place in present day and employ technologies that are feasible right now, not five or ten years from now. In my opinion, though, it has a lot more in common with All Tomorrow's Parties. The unfortunate part of this, however, is that it's not nearly as good a book as PR or ATP. The plot lacks any sort of tension and seems merely to be a device with which he can comment on society. He does make full use of this device and much of what he writes is insightful - but insight does not a novel make. As usual, his writing style is simply brilliant throughout (though there are a noticeable amount of clunky paragraphs this time around, usually having to do with characters putting on clothes or transferring things in and out of their pockets). Overall, there's more than enough here to make the book interesting, but not a whole lot to make it engaging. Cavan blogged at 6:14 PM \| 0 comments Saturday, September 01, 2007 - A Book Meme Was thinking the other day of a post I made sometime early last year (March 2006, upon closer inspection) and also, thanks to a couple of posts I've seen lately, about how memes get started. Not that I have anything insightful to say on the topic, but it did give me a great idea for a meme. So, here's my somewhat half-hearted attempt at contributing a meme to the blogosphere: Go to the advanced book search on Amazon, type your first name into the Title field, and post the most interesting/amusing cover that shows up. Why do I suggest this? Well, because I can pretty much guarantee that there's no way you'll beat mine. That's right -- we of the Cavan breed are all about the leather cowboy gear and 70s porn moustaches. And when it comes to accessories, it just doesn't get any cooler than toting around drooping phallic symbols. Cavan blogged at 6:02 PM \| 5 comments	Progress Zilch! 0/0 Listening A.J. Croce - "Maybe I'm Amazed" My Music Reading Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney My Library Watching Black Book: B Sweet and Lowdown: C Breakfast on Pluto: B Wishlist Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo Rachael Yamagata - Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart