FKO report

( long and boring account of my trip )

Somehow I've managed to mostly avoid mentioning the various conversations I had with people, the conversations that made me feel like a valued member of the FKO family.  I left home on Thursday thinking that I probably should have stayed home, but by Friday night I was very glad to have gone.  I may have found a lot to bitch about on the trip, but it was very good to me, and I'm very grateful to all of the FKO concom for all their efforts.  I really needed a good con.

Paging Sally Headford

I want to friend you but I want to be sure I have the right LJ name (which I won't mention in the same post as the real name, in case you're trying to keep the connection non-public).  Replies are screened, or email me (my first name at my LJ name dot net).

Book review: A Princess of Mars

Today's book review is A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

This book is nearly a hundred years old, and back then there was very little of what would come to be called SF to compare with.  It's certainly interesting to see where the field came from; Burroughs is one of the writers who ultimately inspired the genre I enjoy today.  And there's certainly good action in here, and some ideas that were fresh and new at the time.  But to my jaded 21st century taste, the writing is bad enough that it takes some effort to appreciate the good.  The language is terribly pretentious and the dialog worse.  I just can't picture, even a hundred years ago, someone stringing together such complex sentences with so many polysyllables in the middle of a fight.  But ultimately, what really really hurts the book is the shallowness and absurdity of the characters' motivations and interactions.  I have to consider this book as of historical interest only, because the characters are more believable in fan fiction.

5 out of 10.

( plot summary )