Lumeric's Six

[vovat]

LiveJournal just logged out on me. That's weird.

I had a dream the other day that I was at an International Wizard of Oz Club auction, which was being held in my mom's bedroom (or a place that corresponded with it as far as its location in the building, anyway). The was a book up for auction called Error in Oz. It was credited to Marcus Mebes, and had an ostrich-like bird on the cover. I assume the bird was Error, although it's possible that there was a guest appearance by this guy. (Actually, I wonder if the word "error" came to my mind because it's used so often at my work.) The bidding started at $10,000, so I didn't bid on it, but I was curious about it. There were also a few other books I hadn't read on a table, so I tried paging through them, but knew I wouldn't actually get the chance to read them. This was how I felt at the actual auctions I attended, really. I remember looking at a copy of The Blue Emperor of Oz and even bidding on it, but not winning. I passed up the chance to buy it a few other times after that, when I probably should have just gone ahead and gotten it. Actually, I've heard some people say it's not very good, but other people really like it.

Perhaps the bird on the cover of the book was prophetic, because I did later ride a four-wheeler around an emu farm. It was the first time I'd ridden one, and it was pretty cool. Also, bethje brought me some Olive Garden food for dinner, which was sweet of her. I was jealous of her for going to the Olive Garden without me.

I finished reading Clive Barker's first Abarat book today. It was interesting, and pretty inventive. I found the idea of one island for each hour of the day to be a clever idea. There's some precedent for places where it's always the same time (the March Hare's house and Douglas Adams' Ursa Minor Beta come to mind), but a collection of them might be original with Clive. I do have to wonder how the people on the islands know when it's time to eat, sleep, go to work, and such. {g} The book ends rather abruptly, and since it touches on a lot of characters and plot threads that beg for further exploration, I'm hoping the second book picks up on them. I borrowed it from Beth, and I'll probably start it on my first break tonight.

Comments

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I always think of it as Air-ah-bat instead for some reason. I guess the r-b switch is more pleasant to the human ear than b-r.

But that might not have been as easy to write so that it looks the same upside-down. {g}

I haven't read anything else by Clive, but Beth has. I've seen the Hellraiser and Candyman films, but I think he only had anything to do with the first of each. He just made money from the others. {g} And I actually do like the pictures in Abarat.

The bookjacket of Abarat was the first time I found out Barker was gay and had a life partner. I was sort of surprised he could mention that in a book destined for the older child/young adult section.

Yeah, that's a little unusual, but a good sign of progress, I would say. Really, I don't see that much difference between that and mentioning that someone is married. It isn't like either one implies to the kids that the couple is having a lot of dirty sex.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

After you read as many Barker novels as I have, you start to see the pattern in his writing. Most of his books have a world or worlds connected to this one which are fantasies but far more troubled than a typical fantasy realm. Quite a few mention God vs. the Devil in some form. Other than The Thief of Always, his books run on for ages, at least as long as the Harry Potter books or more. There was only one book of his I couldn't finish (Sacrament I believe) and that was because the main character did all sorts of stupid things for no conceivable reason, such as falling in love with a strange couple he had never met before when they didn't even treat him nicely. Just about the only book where I couldn't identify with the main character in any way.