Technology, Rambling and Dragons
We’re kickin’ it old-school on SGS today, with a lovely post on the British Library‘s Medieval Manuscripts Blog. The image to the right is from Royal MS 20 B XX. Click the image to see a larger version, or — far better — use the British Library MS Viewer to browse wonderful, high-res zoomable scans of the original.
Warning: All links above are more perilous Internet time-wasting rabbit-holes than Wikipedia and TVTropes combined.
Dragonlords of Werner, Werner & Fulk. Winner of the 2003 Business Fantasy Award. An intense, gripping tale of swordplay, magic, romance and intermarket sector spread. You won’t be able to put this one down, unless it’s for the latest issue of CEOWORLD Magazine.
(From Sean Tejaratchi’s LiarTownUSA. Click image to right to enlarge.)
AggieCon 43 took place this past weekend (March 23-25, 2012). Now, at any convention, there will almost certainly be some things that happen which are in poor taste. But there is no point in talking about any of them, because they absolutely pale in comparison to the outcome of Saturday’s “Draw-Off” panel. In said panel, Marty Whitmore (evil illustrator and proprietor of the webcomic Tasty Flesh) squared off against the creative team of Mel Hynes and James L. Grant (writer and artist, respectively, of Two Lumps) to draw the deranged ideas of the audience under extremely tight time constraints.
Gentle reader, if you are of a delicate disposition… if you have any affection for the Dragonriders of Pern and don’t want it Ruined Forever, then I entreat you in the sternest possible way to not read beyond the jump. (While the following content is only NSFW in the mildest possible sense, it is poison to the brain.)
Happy Year of the Dragon to all. Neil Gaiman drew you a picture (click thumbnail to the right for a better view, or read about it on his blog).
If you hatch this year, you’re a Black Water Dragon — very auspicious indeed.
Sunday, January 16th, 2011 is the eighth annual Appreciate a Dragon Day.
I assure you, dear reader, that I share your complete disdain for silly made-up holidays synthesized by a committee and fabricated from some unholy admixture of boredom and profit motive. In this particular case, however, 1) Dragons, 2) the holiday was invented by an actual person, to promote a book (and not to enrich a greeting card company), plus 3) Dragons.
Some brief musings on the latest vaguely Narnia-themed theatrical treacle:
If you happen to like any linear combination of dragons and/or Art Nouveau, you should probably go see it. Treat it as a slide-show of visual wonders, occasionally interrupted by boring people talking.
I regard it as pretty absurd to talk about “spoilers” in the context of a work (ostensibly) based on a book that’s over fifty years old, and I don’t think I commit any. Nevertheless, here’s a cut:
Comparing 2008 to 2009, we’ve seen catastrophic declines in castles, glowy magic and swords. Unicorns have seemingly disappeared, and even formerly sizable populations of elves, wolves and horses are in sharp decline.
Dragons, obviously made from sterner stuff, remain unscathed.
Context? Fantasy novel covers. This news courtesy of Orbit Books (via Making Light). Their handy comparison chart is reproduced to the right, but really: go read the original article. Sample quote: “The number of dragons on covers held steady this year. The dragon population seems to be in perfect balance – but we can’t tell if that’s because new dragons are being born to replace old ones, or if last year’s dragons are just really healthy.”
Did you hear the one about the Aggie who had a truly first-class library of science fiction and fantasy?
The denizens of Texas A&M University take a lot of stick, some fraction of which they may perhaps deserve. As I’m a Rice alumnus, you may believe me when I say I’ve heard (and repeated) my share of the dreadful jokes.
But this post is about one of the places where not only have the Aggies excelled, but have done so within the realm of unqualified, unabashed flat-out geekishness — one of my personal favorite sorts of excellence, and one I deeply admire.
This is a thing I have recently read. You might read it, too, if you like:
Heavy Words, Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme by Chris Roberts.
Each chapter starts with a bit of nursery rhyme, then describes — in a very conversational way — possible meanings, origins and interpretations. Though the subject matter may seem of interest only to those who believe literature to have user-serviceable parts inside, this book strives to entertain, even when it means stepping away from academic rigor.
The subject matter leaps from political intrigue to sexual innuendo to the dense web of literary reference, but the narrative remains interesting and informative throughout. It taught this jaded bibliophile a few new things, and dispelled as myths a few things I’d previously assumed to be true.
I found the English-to-American glossary in the back to be unnecessary and perhaps a little condescending, though I have my suspicions this was the idea of the publisher rather than the author.
[Edited 2010-02-10 by dhenke to remove Amazon links. See explanatory post.]