Category: Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

I so wanted this to be a better book than it is

So I’ve been trying to read Edgar Rice Burroughs A Prince of Mars for over a month now. It…ah…it isn’t going at all well. So not well, in fact, that I actually put together a photograph of the book, the Spokesbear and my frowny-face of extreme displeasure as an illustrative aid, but that plan was thwarted by the fact that I’m house-sitting and brought the wrong thingamywatsits* to connect the camera to the computer. Hell, I suspect reading this book is actually making me a little crazy and there is some form of retaliatory planetary romance pastiche in my writing future**. Were I a saner person this is the point where I’d cut my losses and give up on the book, acknowledging that Princess of Mars is so deeply ingrained in the cultural prejudices of it’s time with not enough cool stuff around the edges to ease me past the knee-jerk string of “for fuck’s sake” responses I get while

PeterMBall 08/07/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

More recent reading

So yesterday I had a cyst the size of a walnut removed from my scalp, which served as the catalyst for the rather enthusiastic bandage job posted last night.  The combination of restless nerves, a long wait in the surgery, and the complete inability to sleep due to the bandages constricting my jaw meant I spent a lot of the day reading. Changeless, the follow-up to the Gail Carriger novel I blogged about on Tuesday, was a fun read that didn’t really have the zomgawesomesauce feel of Soulless. Which is not to say that it isn’t full of Steampunky goodness and a readable book, just that I missed the added frisson of enjoyment that came from the intertextual Austen-esque moments that made the first book so much fun. Austen-esque doesn’t work when you’ve got happy, sexually active couples in the opening pages. I found myself missing that. Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist, however, was the exact kind of comfort reading

PeterMBall 11/06/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Don’t think, just follow the link and order

Angela Slatter’s short story collection, The Girl With No Hands and Other Tales, is available for pre-order in hardcover or paperback. And you’ve gotta admit that it’s a pretty awesome-looking book:   The official launch is at Worldcon in September. It goes without saying that the book itself is going to rock and you should totally secure yourself a copy.

PeterMBall 09/06/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

In Which I Wax Enthusiastic About Some Recent Reading

So Gail Carriger’s Soulless is pretty fricken’ awesome, assuming a given value of awesome that roughly equals me rabidly devouring the book like the unholy mixture of crack and mind-candy it is. I’d fallen for this book so hard after the first chapter that it could have spent the remaining pages kicking puppies and forcing kittens to recite Mein Kampf in their native lolcat and I still would have loved it. Yes, I lapse into hyperbole here, but the book deserves some hyperbole, for it is one of those novels that operates on the fundamental assumption that pure undistllled awesome will carry the day. It bypasses the critical impulses and pleads directly to the little part of the soul that’s been waiting for this book all along without ever knowing of its existence. It inspires the kind of unconditional joy that last emerged when I was sixteen and reading David Eddings.

PeterMBall 08/06/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Ben Francisco @ I09

This week io9’s Weekend Short Story Club is throwing some love in the direction of my friend Ben Francisco and his story Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts which originally appeared in Realms of Fantasy last year. This pleases me because, lets face it, Ben is awesome and Tio Gilbertois one of those stories I patiently waited for him to get published since I read the first draft at Clarion back in 2007 (the other peice I’ve been waiting for, This is Not Concrete, appeared in the most recent issue of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet that arrived on my doorstep on Friday).

PeterMBall 09/05/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

because I geek for covers…

My amusement probably makes less sense if you’re not aware of the band (and song) they’re covering, but this amuses me. Oh, how this amuses me; there is a line between cheese and genius. Methinks this dances merily along it:

PeterMBall 23/04/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Stacking Books in Piles

It seemed like a slightly manic goal when I set it back in July of last year, but my question to read 104 books in the space of a year may actually work out. I finished Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own this morning, which brought my reading total up to 74 books, then put together the final thirty books I’m planning on finishing between now and July 31st. They now live on my bedside table, a pile of words that can be beaten down day by day until I finally clear the whole damn thing. To make the goal I need to clear three books off this pile a week, which is a little less daunting than it should be because of my bad habit of reading half a book and getting distracted (and cherry picking stories out of anthologies and collections). There’s a lot of bookmarks already in that pile, which should cut the reading time down

PeterMBall 17/04/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Puttin on the Pimp Hat

1) Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet has announced the Table of Contents of its next issue due, which will contain work by two of my favourite peeps, Ben Francisco (a man oft-mentioned in this blog for his general awesomeness) and Dan Braum (a man of equal in awesomeness, although somewhat quieter on the internets and thus name-checked around these parts far less than he should be). If I didn’t already adore LCRW and subscribe, this would be the kind of one-two punch that’d convince me I need to pick up an issue. 2) Ellen Datlow’s released the honorable mention’s lists for her Best Horror of the Year anthologies and it includes Horn and the work of a bunch of folks such as Jason Fischer, Angela Slatter, Lee Battersby, Lyn Battersby, Chris Green, Paul Haines, and presumably a couple of other friends whose names I’ve missed in the quick skim I just did. This allows me to tick off yet another thing on

PeterMBall 16/04/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Unlikely Musical Obsessions

There is a rumour that Ratt is going to release a new album through Roadrunner Records later this year. Against all odds, this brings me joy.  And it will continue to do so until I realise it has the potential to be an ever bigger debacle than Chinese Democracy. Oh hair metal, I miss you so. Just, you know, don’t bring back the hair and tight pants when you slink in through the back door of teenage nostalgia.

PeterMBall 06/04/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Talking to the Spokesbear About Recent Reading: The Lathe of Heaven

“You read The Lathe of Heaven?” To his credit, the Spokesbear manages to say this without making it sound like an accusation. Of course, he immediately proceeds to sniff the cover like one of the drug dogs you see at the airport, which kind of undoes his momentary attack of self-control. “You don’t like Le Guin and you’ve had that book sitting on your shelf for six years without reading it. What gives, dumb-arse?”” “I don’t like Earthsea. That’s not a condemnation of her work in its entirety.” The Spokesbear made a nervous coughing noise in the back of his throat. “People will kick your arse for not liking Earthsea. You know that, right?” “I’ve locked the door and taken the phone of the hook. I can drag the shotgun out of the in-case-of-zombie-apocalypse kit if we need it.” “Sure.” I fidgeted as I made coffee, uncomfortable under his stare. “Fine,” I said. “It’s short. I need short books. I promised

PeterMBall 30/03/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Whip It and Writing

1) Whip It I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a blog post-reviewy thing about Whip It for about two weeks now, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just not going to happen. Not because I think it’s a bad film – it’s utterly charming in its ability to recognise that something can be simultaneously camp as hell and the most important thing in the whole damn world – but because it fits into the same space as contemporary art where I find my critical vocabulary isn’t really up to the task of expressing what I’m thinking about after seeing the film. My short, haphazard take on the film goes something like this: it’s endearing. Specifically, the kind of awkward-coming-of-age endearing you find in Taylor Swift film-clip, only Whip It comes without the puritanical undercurrent that usually causes me to froth at the mouth when encountering Swift’s oeuvre (and thus, Whip It comes closer to having actual substance). The film

PeterMBall 08/03/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

‘Course, after this, I’m going in search of the Ramones…

Tonight, this song is the only thing between me and apathetic nihilism. Which kinda begs the question of what I used to do in the days before youtube. I suspect I just went straight to the Smiths CDs and drank.

PeterMBall 28/02/2010

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