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Angels Don't Speak Chinese
May. 15th, 2011
11:06 pm - Preliminaries
The Russian is a beautiful and mighty language, but, alas, the blogging in Russian suffers from one shortcoming: the foreigners don't understand a word of it. So I decided to solve the problem this way: this blog will be 'foreign' one, mostly harmless English, though French, Estonian and Japanese are welcome (I'd appreciate some German practice, but afraid of consequences), and I'll continue to read and comment the non-Russian speaking (Russian-non-speaking?) friends via my basic blog. The blogs won't repeat each other. I advancely beg your pardon for the mistakes I use to make.
About me: journalist & translator & write SF stories. I live in Tallinn, Estonia. I am interested in Speculative Fiction in all its kinds and many other things, from Anime to Victorians.
Oct. 3rd, 2010
12:20 pm - Far From the Madding Crowd
Better to be fired by this President than to remain in an administration that is determined to govern as if we had a Dictatorship of the Proletariat instead of a Constitution. (c) Orson Scott Card's column "Obama Spits on the Constitution" on www.ornery.org.
That horrible monster Proletariat! More heinous than Cthulhu Itself. Oh my.
Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin debated sf in Portland, OR, on 23 September, with Atwood introducing a whole new theory that sf (space squid etc.) descended from Wells while speculative fiction (Atwood) descended from Verne, and fantasy from, er, Tennyson. via Ansible.
She is right about one thing: "Oryx and Crake" is as dull as Verne's texts. For me, at least. But what the whole battle of Speculative F and some stupid SF is about eludes me completely. "Oryx and Crake" is pure SF. Not very interesting, and maybe that's the point: judge it by some other standards, say it's Verne and no Wells, and please keep the faith in the customary superiority of the proud Literary Novels over all the dishonourable genres.
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.
Sep. 25th, 2010
09:55 pm - Christians, Jews, Muslims, Mendelsohn, Moon and the Sense of Wonder
Farah Mendelsohn continues to surprise me.
First, she posted a post about horrible Christianity that persecuted the Jews for 2000 years, including the Holocaust. I dared to comment that such generalizations are all wrong, that there are good Christians and bad Christians, that neither Hitler nor his acolytes were Christians when they organized the most terribe crime of the XX century, despite the Catholic and Protestant background of some of them. And that because of similar generalized grudges Holocaust did happen, after all. I understand the reasoned grudges. I don't undertstand the generalized hatred.
FJM immediately banned me saying "But any analysis which begins with assuming that the *victims* should not have a grudge is seriously wrongheaded". Which was not my thought at all. Mine was that you cannot equal the religion and the hangmen, even if they were self-defined "Christians". Especially in the case when the founder of religion forbids such persecution and tells instead to love the other humans being, even enemies.
The original post was since locked, so I can't quote comments from it at full length.
Now FJM posts a post about Wiscon and recommends that when you fill in your participation form you add under "Is there anyone with whom you do not wish to be programmed?", "Elizabeth Moon". Because the GoH Elizabeth Moon said very wrong things about Muslims in her infamous post about "the long, long chain of Islamic hostility", I suppose.
Which she did. Which was absolutely terrible. That's where FJM is right.
What I can't see is the difference between Farah Mendelsohn and Elizabeth Moon ("just another racist jerk", according to one of the comments in FJM's LJ; I guess no one is banned this time). Why should one think that anti-Christian post is normal and anti-Islamic post is not? The Age of Inconsistency, alas.
Aug. 17th, 2010
10:25 pm - Twinkle Twinkle Battlestar
"Battlestar Galactica" is by no means science fiction, at least hard one. (Hardboiled, maybe.) But then we must say the same about "Dune", mustn't we? Because, besides many layers of this and that, the ultimate goal of "Dune" is to prove that
In the face of these facts, one is led to the inescapable conclusion that the inefficient Bene Gesserit behavior in this affair was a product of an even higher plan of which they were completely unaware!
Replace "Bene Gesserit" with "Cylons", and here you are. But Frank Herbert's series, notwithstanding its overwhelming religiosity, is perfectly accepted as SF. What's the matter with the divine invasions of "Battlestar Galactica"?
Aug. 9th, 2010
01:55 pm - Oh Those Russians
The Russians are very popular in Western SF. The three totally different stories I've read online (via SignalSF) - "Olga" by C.T.Adams, "How to Become a Mars Overlord" by Catherynne M. Valente and "Going Deep" by James Patrick Kelly - all feature something Russian.
It's all right with Catherynne's story: there are the names for the planets or moons like Volniy and Vernost (Вольный и Верность, Free and Fidelity). It's almost all right with C.T.Adams, though what Russian surname sounds like Chrischenko is a real riddle for me. Grishenko? Grishchenko? James Patrick Kelly baptizes one of the characters as Natalya Volochkova. Well, that's where the problems with foreign names usually start.
It's normal that the writers, being unacquainted properly with the culture which elements they try to weave into their stories, very often use the famous names or the most common ones, so the character is either Pushkin, Yesenin, Bunin, Volochkova (if not Tolstoy and Gogol) or Ivanov and Petrov. It's not that Volochkova isn't Russian name, but it's fairly rare, so the Russian reader instantly recognizes here the surname of the scandalous ballet dancer Anastasiya Volochkova and understands that the author is not too deep into Russian culture. Such names stand out as, alas, implausible.
The compromise would be to use the foreign name that's not famous but also not very common. I guess the same problem is with the Russian writers writing about British or Americans. But it's the lesser problem, and not only because Russian texts rarely reach American eyes.
It's because Russians know more about the West than the Westerners know about Russia - thanks, yes, to the dominance of Western culture in ex-USSR countries and Hollywood and English as the first-and-only international language.
Aug. 8th, 2010
04:13 pm - All Along the Watchtower
Still kicking, thank you.
Have watched the last episode of 3rd season of "Battlestar Galactica". That's what I expect from the good SF - meaning not only the cliffhanger but all of it. The rhythm. The insight. The lines converging where you stand. In short, the very feeling of it. Again, that's what the best Japanese anime so often have, but what even the best Western books and movies so terribly, indecently, ungodly lack.
Reading "Blindsight" by Peter Watts (the Russian translation of it). Seems to be exceptionally good Hard SF; unfortunately, no "feeling of it" for me as yet.
Jan. 11th, 2010
03:14 pm - Occasional Artless Limerick
Once the Englishman's come from afar
To Edina's most ebrious bar
Crying: "Here it's so rhotic!
It just makes me neurotic!
Give me jar! And cigar! And guitar!.."
Jan. 2nd, 2010
11:11 pm - The Evening Reading: how to marry a writer
Your job breaks down into three major areas – meeting the writer of your dreams, marrying him (or her), and keeping the fathead you married alert. Let’s take meeting first.
You need not read the writer’s work – in fact, it’s better if you don’t: any writer would rather talk to somebody who wants to read him than to somebody who has. Practice the following lines: ‘Oh, Mr. Tucker, I hear you’ve started to write! I can’t wait until your first book comes out!’ That one was for you older ladies. Now for the younger ones, ‘Oh, Mr. Haldeman, my father is Secretary of Defence, and he says The Forever War practically taught him his job!’ Now this next one is only for younger ladies who know how to wiggle. If you’re a really good wiggler, it can’t miss. ‘Oh, Mr. Spinrad, my girlfriend says everything you write makes her feel,’ (wiggle), ‘oh, you know!’
But memorising lines like these is not enough. You must also learn which lines NOT to use. Here are three: ‘Mr. Farmer, your book made me feel like getting plowed.’ ‘Mr. Budrys, when are you going to start writing again?’ and of course the unfailing, ‘Dr. Asimov, can I call you Ike?’
Gene Wolfe "How to be a Writer's Family"
...And Happy New Year, of course :)
Dec. 17th, 2009
12:14 am - The Scientifictionist
[Our global anthem, translated :]
Klavirabend. Sauerkraut.
Apfelstrudel. Coming out.
Mata Hari - Kilgore Trout.
Piano! Forte! Hook! Knockout!
Break! Mazurka. Cyberrout.
Mastermind. Kung fu. Blackout.
Santabarbara. Fallout.
No surrender! Scream and shout!
Ten years later. Schwester. Brother.
"I'm your father". Me and Other.
Chotto matte! Uzi. Schmeisser.
Shotgun! Schiessen! Shoot 'em! Scheisse!
Vodka Bar. Absinthe. Budweiser.
Nanotronic Superkaiser.
Mister Trickster, neuromaster.
Revolution. Rifle. Blaster.
Asteroid. Undeground.
Darkness. Misery. Background.
Spaceship. Bullshit. Lost and found.
Schwarzschild. Aliens abound.
Deathstarfighter. Bloody Cloud.
Final battle. "I am proud".
Peace. Utopia. Far out!
Klavirabend. Sauerkraut.
Dec. 9th, 2009
11:09 pm - [luhv]
[Not a poet, obviously :]
feel free to friend me
feel tree to bird me
feel ill to bend me
feel eel to gird me
feel bad to foe me
feel sad to use me
feel cold to owe me
feel gold to choose me
feel Poe to fright me
feel whoa to call me
feel day to night me
feel way to all me
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