Sales has posted more photos of Durrelliana. He also has an interesting year’s best list, cutting across media.

For some reason Tero’s guest post on the Finnish language has heated up today–several new comments.

I wonder what other languages are cooler than English…

One of Dominik Petr’s illos for the Czech edition of Veniss Underground. Apparently, for promotional purposes, they have art done for excerpts published in magazines.

Jeff

Upon viewing the Orson Welles-like Shriek movie trailer…

Sevenputput: you wasted our time

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The latest Clarkesworld includes Desirina Boskovich’s short story Celadon, one of her first published pieces. In addition to the perk of having a great name for a future book cover, Boskovich has written a wonderfully surreal SF story; it’s one both Ann and I like a lot. Here’s a little excerpt: There had been life on this planet: a natural ecosystem. An endless network of worms crawled just beneath the surface. Enormous flocks of butterflies lived in the trees, roaming the oceans of moss. When they landed en masse, they could shroud a tree in shimmering snow. I just listened to the podcast, too, and it’s great!

Also in this issue you’ll find a roundtable discussion of anthology editing with John Joseph Adams, Ellen Datlow, Jonathan Strahan, and James Lowder, and also including some thoughts from us.

As if there weren’t enough squid in the world already, this site gives you the ability to create your own. Mine is called Psychedelicsquid. The site allows you to search for other people’s squid, so…

Thanks, Iain Rowan!

I’ve just posted my short Amazon feature on this delightful graphic novel by Casarosa. Reading it is a bit like the feeling you get from having had a good massage, a long, relaxing afternoon at the beach, or curling up in blankets on the couch on a cold day.

This blog post is part of my ongoing “60 Books in 60 Days” encounter with the Penguin Great Ideas series. From mid-December to mid-February, I will read one book in the series each night and post a blog entry about it the next morning. For more on this beautifully designed series, visit Penguin’s page about the books.

Civilization and Its Discontents
by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Memorable Line (if you can call it that)
“These people make themselves independent of the concurrence of the object of their love by shifting the main emphasis from being loved to their own loving; they protect themselves against the loss of the love object by directing their love not to individuals, but to everyone in equal measure, and they avoid the uncertainties and disappointments of genital love by deviating from its sexual aim and transforming the drive into an aim-inhibited impulse.”

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This holiday season, Ann and I watched the John Adams miniseries on DVD. Coming on the heels of having read Paine’s Common Sense and some discussion about humanizing historical characters, it was a bit of a revelation. Following Adams and his wife through more than fifty years of the early history of the United States, and including a fascinating look at, among others, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, this is as moving and sweeping a historical drama as I have yet seen.

At the core of the movie is the relationship between Adams and his wife Abigail. Watching not just the trials and triumphs of a country but a marriage over such a span was an emotional experience. The movie is not just about the formation of a country but the nature of mortality.

Paul Giamatti as Adams makes the man come alive in all of his infuriating complexity. Here was a man as successful as anyone, and yet in many ways an under-achiever because of his temper and his bluntness. Laura Linney as his wife Abigail is an absolute revelation–a performance as brilliant and multi-faceted as Giamatti’s. Stephen Dillane plays a cool, reserved, almost reptilian Jefferson with similar, if understated, verve. Other actors are also excellent, from David Morse (Washington) to Tom Wilkinson (Benjamin Franklin).

The sweep of historical events is masterfully conveyed in this miniseries, but don’t expect to get an intimate view of things like Revolutionary War battles or the War of 1812. Adams was largely on the sidelines during these events–either serving as an ambassador overseas or not in office. This adds a wonderful perspective, though, on the period, as we get scenes not in the history books.

I cannot recommend John Adams highly enough. I didn’t expect to cry, and I didn’t expect to feel so utterly invested in the lives of Adams and his wife. Stunning stuff. Between the Paine and this miniseries, I’ve finally rediscovered a kind of patriotism and pride in my country, even as I still shudder at the way in which we’ve squandered much of the potential we started with in this country.

Larry Novel at OF Blog of the Fallen has a pretty comprehensive look at anthologies, along with discussion of some story collections and novellas. He liked The New Weird and Steampunk, but lots of other stuff, too.

There’s also just now this review of Steampunk on SF Site, which Paul Raven liked conditionally, having issues with the variety contained therein. I have no issues with those issues (in fact, there’s some interesting stuff there for further discussion)–negative, positive, and indifferent reviews only bother me when they have factual errors in them or ascribe motivations to the participants that are false or speculative–but we did not include the Blaylock just to include it, as he indicates, and the comment I made on the SH comments thread does not say that. I think they’re fixing that little bit–and the review otherwise has much to recommend it. (You can also vote for your favorite books of 2008, here.)

Charles Tan also has some year-end wrap-ups, including this one. Charles sent me some great Phillipines-published books last year and I hope to blog about some of them soon.