It's funny -- from the look of this thread, it seems like we deal with our authors just as we deal with our grandparents: trying to mediate betwen gratefulness for what they gave us and grudges against their flaws. Okay, that's not very profound.

But, you know. I don't often think of authors as like relatives, or even, I confess, like people. They're just the secret hand inside the puppet. They give me novels, and the novels are good or bad and I'm grateful for them or try to forgive them their flaws, but it hardly occurs to me to think that way about authors.

But, you know. I don't often think of authors as like relatives, or even, I confess, like people. They're just the secret hand inside the puppet.

Wrod, Nutty. I haven't been able to articulate that.

even, I confess, like people.

Fascinating. I think of Yeats as my cranky old greatuncle. Seriously. I have that same amused and respectful affection. And I have never read a Kipling biography, even though I'd really like to, because one of his late poems goes on about how he doesn't want one to be written. Courtesy, at least, to a dead author.

if you put a lower case t in front of that statement, it will automatically put the tags around it, like so:

cool. Ta Megan.

next time I promise to read the faq and how-to and what-not :)

any time jimi. that's what we're all here for!

If we're going to do Fantasy Authors Of That Era, can we talk Peake?

I was reminded of him by this:

[CLS spent] several years at a boarding school run by a clinically insane sadist - a place so horrible he called it "Belsen" in his autobiography

Mervyn Peake spent time in both a British Public School and a Nazi Concentration Camp, but he always said the former had the greater influence on him...

Ooh, love Peake. Love Peake, and am totally out of time and must pound out a truckload of work before five, thus leaving me time to say nothing more than "Love Peake."

Possibly more articulate gushing tomorrow.

So, what's the verdict on Firefly?

It didn't rock like a rocking thing, but it didn't suck like a sucking thing either. The Buffistas who were over my house had no trouble sitting through a second viewing immediately after the first (Ed finally arrived a half-hour after we'd started watching, and we'd delayed a good 20 minutes before starting, so when it finished we went back to show him the scenes he'd missed, and just watched it all the way through again, without fidgeting).

There seems to be agreement that while this premiere episode wasn't anything special, it looks good in comparison to any of the Star Trek pilots or B5.

It was also much more "Western" -- including a train heist -- than most people including me expected.

Fi, I was disappointed. Low on the snark, high on the faux-Western dialogue. Hoping for better things.

But an amazing kickass black female second lead.