The Dresden Files: #7 Dead Beat

The internet is not to be trusted. Not just because it is a Cold-War invention designed to decentralise information, a bit like a guerrilla cell, but because anyone can ‘publish’ anything, like a top five list of their favourite sandwich toppings (cheese (which is assumed as a fundamental ingredient in all food), egg, avo, cucumber and mayo, and chocolate spread) and Google might proclaim them expert in the culinary arts. (This blog does not appear on any search engine lists FYI. Perhaps Google doesn’t like my choice of sandwiches. Perhaps because you should visit my blog more often. #justsaying)

Anyway, when I wanted a light read, and had already read five Terry Pratchett’s in a (chronological) row, I typed in ‘top 10 supernatural apocalyptic horror’ to a search engine that has enough publicity already. Some of the lists were weighted by coming-of-age stories that encourage all sorts of abuse, and fantasies of death – you know what I am talking about. Most of the others I had read. I had to be selective and so I jotted down only the titles of books that appeared in the same lists as the The Road; while lists that included Stranger in a Strange Land and excluded Margaret Atwood were dismissed with a click.

One title I had never heard of reappeared, making it a hit by Google standards. Dead Beat by Jim Butcher, part of the Dresden Files. This title is number 7 in the series (I will get to my opinion of series in general, if not now, then in a post built entirely for it). A site devoted to science fiction (obviously this site will have the answers I am looking for, and none of them are sandwiches) called this particular book ‘a kitchen sink book; Butcher manages to cram in werewolves, wizards, vampires, fairies, demons and zombies, without making it feel crowded’. She forgot the T-Rex.

I can hear you, shifting the cursor indecisively toward the cross at the top of the screen. That would have been my reaction. Until the improbable happened: the security post to my suspension of disbelief malfunctioned. Yep, I read a story about the fleshy ghost of a T-Rex ridden by a wizard without a pointy hat and with a staff, and I believed it (as in I believed this could happen in that fantasy Earth, not now, here, in front of me. Just to clarify). That dinosaur was maybe the coolest character in any story I have recently read, except for Commander Vimes of the Nightswatch.

Again, hear me out. Google Analytics also records how long you spend reading my blog, and have I mentioned I am broke-ass writer, whose career may begin or end with your reading? I finished reading Dead Beat in a couple of hours, including some moonlit hours, and then decided to read the series in order. (I am on Book 3.) Because it was an erudite essay on human nature? Because it made me examine my sacred cows (hock included. I love that word. Hock)? Because it used the supernatural to comment on the ordinary? Kinda, kinda and kinda.

This is not a great book, but it is a very good book. So are books 1 and 2. And not because in number 4 a T-Rex that cuts a swathe of carnage through San Francisco, but because Book 2 includes four different types of werewolf (‘werewolf’ being an ambiguous term, as Mr Butcher shows us), also cutting a swathe of carnage. The most terrifying and rabid of the four is the loup-garou, a man whose family was cursed to turn on full moon. Sounds ordinary but no. This creature is, again, terrifying. It is huge and filled with a blood lust that shreds the man’s conscience when he wakes up.

You may have notice there are no Native Americans pacing in denim shorts. Jim Butcher obviously does a wealth of research, drawing deeply on various myths before painting them with his imagination. When he describes a T-Rex romping down a boulevard, he has contemplated the dimensions of beast and environment, and how one would go about riding it (see, a T-Rex leans forward when moving and leans back but not entirely vertical when standing, so he places the wizard near the neck of the creature, which is also far from the teeth).

The book earns its ‘very’ because it is two tsp detective novel to one tsp supernatural thriller, just without the make-up plastered, body-hugging dress wearing, purring femme fatale. In fact his range of female characters is more balanced than is usual in fantasy literature, which is not to say that he and his wizard don’t like a beautiful woman, because they do. They definitely do. The books are formulaic but in the way that Stephen King’s writing is good. It works. Because they are not predictable. Which seems obvious when the cast includes four type of werewolf, an energy vampire and a dinosaur. But it isn’t. Trust me, I’m an editor.

Harry Dresden is our private investigator and wizard, like in the pointy hat sense but without the pointy hat. (He does however possess a staff covered in runes, a talking skull and a cat.) He investigates the paranormal; he has a legitimate ad in the yellow pages that says ‘wizard’ although most people think he is a charlatan – including to some extent himself. He is employed by a branch of the police department, which thinks he is a charlatan too as well as a scape goat.

Can you focus, please? In Book 7 (I can hear you bleating about reading the books in order, but then please explain Star Wars), three sets of warlocks (or something) want to call on the brutish but sinister Elfking to chomp his way through the human race, making them kings and queens (or something). Of course, this can only happen at a specific time and place, because otherwise it would be difficult to get everyone together and string a plot across between them. Have I mentioned the zombies yet?

If you have reached this point and are thinking, ‘I don’t like science fiction’, I do not know why you are still reading. Either peg your disbelief over a clothesline or go away. You are breaking my train of thought.

Dresden is a more likeable Sherlock Holmes, with the wit of the Holmes (Robert Downey Jnr (who, FYI, I disliked in that role very much)) of the modern retellings. The wizard surprises even himself when he says something that isn’t sarcastic – some comments making me laugh loudly enough to frighten myself, the cats and my bunny. Like any good likeable hero, he tends to trip face-down into dangerous situations, stopping mid-step to (sometimes accidentally) smite someone.

But essentially our guy is ordinary. Apart from his magical powers – that make electrical items of any sort explode – a staff and a cat. But otherwise ordinary – except for the regular appearance of demons, fairies, vampires and zombies. Dresden is the good guy that we can all relate to. The guy trying to make a difference. Trying to live his life, without being impaled, scalped or set on fire over a misunderstanding.  

According to the head honchos of wizards and a chorus of supernatural beings, Dresden’s fatal flaw is his attachment to humanity. An attachment to people being and (this part’s important) staying alive. An attachment so strong he is always shielding people from supernatural crazies. He is always trying to keep carnage down a minimum, but that means the rules have to bend to his will. Terrible, just terrible, right? No. His real flaw is giving other people benefit of the doubt that he often doesn’t give himself. He is strong, in most ways except physically, but not impervious to pain (Book 2 was a close one).  

Another site devoted to the fans of science fiction says, ‘If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and Butcher has had half a dozen books to figure out his formula is working for him. Yet he's deft enough to avoid repeating himself. He allows each volume to add a little something to the mythology that's been built up.’ You needn’t have read my waffle because this sums all My Point in a paragraph. Still, read it anyway.

In conclusion, this is a list of and recipes to make myfavourite sandwiches. *Psych* for those who skipped to the end – I even heaped on a trite introductory phrase for you. Do you still need a reason to read The Dresden Files? Here’s one for dorks like me: the books are also available as comics and audio books read by – wait for it – James Marsters aka Spike of Buffy and Spike. Indeed, fellow dorks. Indeed. 

History and fiction - and dinosaurs

When I was pre-teen, I wanted to be an archaeologist. I would have been content curating a museum, because long excavations without access to proper showers wearing clothes chosen because they showed the dirt the least and brushing dirt away from a metatarsal would have tested my love even for custard croissants. Then a teacher - as they do - crushed my hopes by pointing out I wasn't very good at, like, school. Jokes on her because I then vaulted the scholarly alphabet, but sans my dreams.

What they fail to tell you in school - among many things - is that a job title hides many variations of task. Even though I lacked fundamental logical skills, as it turns out, I could have risen through the corporate landscape, perhaps in funding, by bemoaning the inadequacies of the previous job-holder and then revising everything because Steve Jobs did it (in a competitive and innovative technological environment that is completely different to most companies).

I especially love dinosaurs. Now, I understand that this discipline is a bit of a joke because it requires ignoring the amazing range of animals we have now. But, they are giant reptile-like creatures, people. And this is also a treasure hunt. We don't even really know what they look like or sound like, just where they died, really. We don't have complete skeletons, people. We're throwing a party if we find an intact femur. And like with Pluto, we're notching creatures off roll call all the time.

When I was still living in the clouds like scarecrow looking for my brain, I had collections of magazines, trading cards and posters of my favorite dinos. I drew a cartoon of a dinosaur family that I realise now was improbable because different species can't breed, and I'm pretty sure a T-Rex and brontosaurus do not a stegosaurus make. Most kids grow out of this and into, I dunno, cars and making dinner like adults.

Did you know there is actually an internet discussion about who would win: T-Rex or Allosaurus? Your answer? It's a trick question. They lived in different eras. But should time and space collapse, my money's on the Allosaurus. The T-Rex is bulky and wins mostly by rushing at its prey, and Allosauris is lithe and fights like a boxer. Another anticipated show-down is Allosaurus versus Stegosaurus. I leave that to your imagination.

A stegosaurus staring down an Allosaurus.

There is a type of dinosaur that would beat them both. A saurupod (four-legged herbivore) so big nothing could kill an adult, except maybe worms, gangrene and flu. Oh, and humans. First they were known as gigantosaurs (yes, I know, I would have called it Bowbeforemedwarves-aurus) and then titanosaurs (I call it Fiveminutesoffame-saurus). A single femur is about one and a half times the height of a person.

A herbivore at the centre of the food chain.

According to reputable sources, a velociraptor was captured last year alive in Congo. There are some people who take this seriously because some fossils of extinct dinosaurs that were not wiped out in the mass extinction have been found in the area. Unfortunately space and time has not collapsed, and a few million years is a long time for anything to hibernate. Also, if they were real, I would be there reenacting the scene in Jurassic Park where the kids are hiding in the kitchen.

Some of my favourites have always been (until they check it off roll call) a species of duck-billed dinosaurs, which is a description not a nickname. They grazed in the same way as cattle, with their lips. Do I need to state the obvious? That their lips looked like bills. Well now I have. They ate on four legs but ran away on two, smart buggers.

Bird beak rather than bill, maybe.

This was not where My Point was meant to be (this never happens. Never). I was actually going to write about a popular science book I am reading that I am sceptical about. (The author claims he wrote a paper that founded string theory. Which is interesting given that the theory predates his birth.) But, you know, then dinosaurs. Perhaps I like history because if it were going to affect us, it already has. Like a  novel, you can close the book or skip the chapter on mass sacrifice or how that fossil came to be dead in the first place. You squint at your mortality, shift your head so that it looks like immortality and leave to get lunch.

I would be good at curating a museum. Far away from other people. With only the past and fiction for company. (I meant or: past or fiction. Definitely.) Can someone translate Bowbeforemedwarves-aurus into Latin?

PS. I realise a person who hunts dinosaurs is a paleontologist. But I was 12.

The Last Policeman

I was not drawn to the book by the title, clearly. The title puts me in mind of an I am Legend-Rick Grimes-Deadwood mash-up. The apocalyptic surviver/cowboy thing has been done - although not to death. Those who have watched the entire Space Odyssey and can still talk about it without PTS breakdowns call the detective story, cowboy epic and science-fiction culture siblings. It makes sense, really. Yes, really. Trap activated and now you shall listen to my theories even though I have only watched five minutes of Space Odyssey before genuinely wanting to inflict physical harm upon myself.

Five minutes of my life I lost: Space Odyssey

Then again, if I were an expert, I wouldn't be putting all this down on a blog for fickle readers. Yes, again. That's you.

The Last Policeman is a detective novel. The mystery is staid: a 'hanger' has been found dead in a McDonald's bathroom and our intrepid detective believes he was murdered. The evidence being a black belt. Oh you're waiting for more? There is none. Justifiably, his colleagues think he is young and overzealous and way too committed to the whole justice thing (they have a point).

Did you notice it? The tide of silver-grey herrings? A 'hanger' is a suicide by noose. Why would one have slang for types of suicide? (I have been drawing this one out.)

An asteroid is flaming through space aimed like a stone in a slingshot slung by Hercules for Earth. And everyone is offing themselves - hanging being a popular method. (Not smart, peeps. Like, at all. It is incredibly difficult to successfully hang yourself, for reasons I shall not explore.) When the novel begins, the asteroid (sentimentally named Maia) is seven months away and 103% on course to hit Earth.

Now, I am not against a natural disaster wiping out the destructive toddler that is the human race. In fact, if I were somehow given the choice, I would choose to resurrect the dinosaurs. Partly because I have always wanted to see a dinosaur, from a secure hiding place obviously. This reminds me of the meme that if human beings had to fight for survival against the dinosaurs, the egg-laying creatures would win.

I also never understand the reactions to the apocalypse. You know we aren't immortal, right? As someone once said, we are pretty much hamburger meat. We make it until we don't. And there are lots of places on Earth where the apocalypse is pretty much every day. "Kill the cockroaches", Russian gulags and Ebola being good examples.

But while we're - I'm - discussing this, our unconscious delusions of immortality counter our death drives, like the self-correcting nervous system and Gaia. Freud said that we have to believe we are immortal in order to face our mortality and lots of psychologists whose names I don't know agree that the popularity of horror movies and apocalyptic fiction is in seeing someone else die so we can feel relief at still being alive and reinforce the idea that we are immortal.

True as Bob.

Ok, so by the time Maia gets here, she won't have many people to irradiate, and if she doesn't, there won't be anyone to say 'I told you' to. But believe it or not, some really sadistic people are still doing their jobs, including this very naive detective (I actually think he has a mild form of autism or Asberger's). Well, not doing their jobs, which is why they don't believe - or care about - the murder. Perhaps this is how he deals with his imminent demise: by obsessing over someone else's death. Oh Freud, you could write a trilogy of books about this.

 As the narrator repeatedly reminds us, the fallible scientists slid down a slide of probability until they reached the mud of almost certainly (because never say never - or just anything unequivocal. Always leave room for retraction). Our socially stilted detective seems stuck on this, probably because he likes a long shot. Which is a criterion of a good but definitely not romantic hero. These heroes are perpetually - or almost perpetually - dissatisfied.

Think of the many John Wayne or Clint Eastward characters (let's be honest, they are all just one guy with different ponchos). To be a cowboy, the hero needs to be isolated from society, even ostracised, with some trauma in his past that he assumes some guilt for. He is self-reliant in his isolation and eternally awkward in society. He is cruel, but he shows that humanity is cruel. The cowboy always faces the march of civilisation and the extinction of his little corner of desert. He is the last outpost of the old ways, in which people have one-on-one relationships with the environment. Dang society. Where is that asteroid when you need it?

Sigourney Weaver kicking some gross alien ass

Now consider Sigourney Weaver's character in Alien 2. She travelled through time when she travelled through space in the wake of blowing up a really horrid, slimy flock of flies.  Her daughter may as well be dead because she is old and crabby. No one believes her about the flies so they think she is a murderer - an insane one. She is lost in this new world and stuck in the one before having to kill things. In the end, she displays some epic gunpower (she straps two guns together - why has no one ever thought of this?!) in an epic fight wearing a robot suit. Cowboy much?

Back to the apocalypse (to my mind, facing those fracking aliens would be far worse than an instantaneous death). In I am Legend (the book), Robert Neville is all of these things, except he really is utterly alone. You could argue the zombies are a metaphor for society, being a much better catalyst than sheep, but you could also argue that without a society as backdrop, he cannot be a hero. Neville is not your Will Smith martyr; he can only be selfish to survive.

Hank Palace is definitely isolated: he uses boxes as furniture, his sister is a drug addict, and his colleagues are waiting for the day the penny drops and he realises the world is already disaster. One trait I didn't mention: honour. These men all have a code of honour (which is not justice. And I am ok with that). In Detective Palace's case, his code is logic and rules and that takes the form of justice when we meet him. He reads every amendment to the laws (now coming in and heavy), views everyone as equals (except the criminals), and writes down every clue in a blue notebook so he can put them together.

He seems to be in some denial about Maia. I will leave you to figure that one out, because you need something to do other than read blogs.

The asteroid, like bad guys, aliens and zombies is a reminder and fear of society's fallibility. The inevitability of its destruction. And perhaps the isolation that comes of knowing this. Of being unable to stop knowing this. We are attracted to these stories to roll around in their foreignness and convince ourselves they cannot happen. Except I always wonder at this fear. My degree (let's milk it for the tiny ounce of value it has) taught me that 'civilisation' is a fantasy, as is any sort of social Darwinism (I am thinking of technological Darwinism here). Change is as constant as death.

I would prefer to be murdered by an asteroid though.

There's more! I have mislead you twice about this. The detective genre. Cowboy much? One or two people deep in a conspiracy theory who pursue the 'truth' even when faced with physical harm. Look, they yell, way to loudly in a dark warehouse while they are being hunted. Society is fraught with red herrings, but we have found the truth. The world has order, friends! Phew. Joke's on you, buddy, but let's take the win. In an impressive flip, in the end they are welcomed into society, having found a friend or the love of his life or just acceptance. 'Told ya so,' he thinks and sometimes actually yells.

Society is not unequivocally screwed. Not as long as this hero(ine) brings order to the world. Like the movie named whatchamacallit, you do something good for a person, who does good, who does good. But this isn't Carthage and so our land is not about to be sown with salt and we aren't about to be taken slave. Society just is because we are and we are mortal. Good breeds good, but trauma begets trauma.

I seem to be playing both sides of the fence here. But look! There is no fence. (An asteroid took it out after a dinosaur stomped on it.) These works of the imagination conjur up our worst fears, which are part of being human and therefore inevitable, and then sings us a lullaby about our own agency. We can save ourselves, they say. Even in the face of the apocalypse, we can still make meaning of a mystery. And therefore we are immortal. Or something. Maybe just immune to death for the immediate future.

Saying something doesn't make it true

Pinterest feeds off sentimental sayings of ten words or less set on a pretty textured backgrounds or stock photos. Saying something doesn't make it true, my friend, any less than believing the sun will rise in the south tomorrow will make it so. Nor will grouping ten words, like singles around the bar, guarantee they make sense. In fact, you could argue that there is an ideal number of words in a concise but accurate description. But ten words is not it.

Think about it: Big Bang Theory. Err firecrackers? Popping balloons (shudder)? Sheldon? Explain that in ten words or less.

In fact, most of these memes make less sense than the cliches and housewives' myths handed down through the generations (like the perfect way to make tea), which usually only inadvertently make sense (there is no perfect way to make tea, because coffee. You heard me. Coffee). "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." Aaaaaand sometimes it doesn't. "Haste makes waste." Not in the movies. You're not exactly going to sit down to think when an alarm starts running its mouth off in a nuclear reactor.

Here are some clangers.

The words are very pretty and, in these cases, make some superficial sense and give us a warm feeling that would otherwise be a symptom of internal bleeding. Although this may surprise you, I am a book person, a reader, a literate. I am also a creative who fits into the box of stereotypical characters of writers quite nicely, with some shuffling. So I can tell you that the imagination is mostly escapism and creating is more a by-product. I've lived the thousand lives The Man of One Thousand Books is alluding to. Many are independent of books and live like moss in the damper parts of my brain.

Let's take a breather here. What is The Point of this post? a) The Big Bang Theory b) Memes c) Game of Thrones d) Coffee e) None of the Above.

The Point is always coffee but you get points for trying if you went with e). Now, we're rounding a hairpin bend, so stay with me, you.

Reading turns you into a know-it-all. I am a false measure, because I was this way to start with. I once tried to convince my mother than one million was actually one thousand thousand. My clincher was "my teacher told me". This is like Maths in school - most of your marks were for working out, even if your numbers were wrong. So my logic was wandering in the right direction, but it could have hit the million between the eyes if I had listened.

A reader can, and will, tell you about Emperor butterflies (all my knowledge about these creatures comes from the books of Enid Blyton so it could, for all I know, be a strictly fictitious thing. Although, who would make up a butterfly?), the aftermath of World War I and where Anastacia's body is. Replace these facts with whatever fact the reader in your life is currently spouting.

This occurred to me because, in lieu of being able to give anything my attention for more than five minutes right now, I am devouring magazines as if they were episodes of The Office (fyi my favourite two series. Like, ever). Mostly techie or cultural things (fashion magazines, by comparison, are just recycled and often contradictory tidbits, like whether ripped denim looks trashy and whether yellow lipstick ever suits anyone. Like, ever).

Ok, I confess. I just wanted to regale you with some annoying facts about the world. Anticipating it would be annoying, I tried to ride in on the back of a Lipizzaner - donkey - mule deer - camel. Basically, I tried to hide my intention in plain sight. Since we've come all this way, I am just going to go ahead as if I had not confessed anything at all. Which, honestly, is the way most Catholics go about it.

So, did you know that nuclear reactors are being phased out, by not being upgraded, the output slowed and the plants shut, because they are not efficient sources of power? Although it is an efficient source of death and general suffering. Did you know that a team of countries hacked into the nuclear facilities of another country and shut the whole thing down? Did you know that the most complete skeleton of a T-Rex was found in 1977 and is the only one to have arms (that sounds like a meme in the making)? And that T-Rex could not live in today's world because the air isn't dense enough?

Facts are like crosswords: they are addictive. In fact, both are like reading fiction, which is addictive. Don't take my word for this though; nothing accurate can be said in ten words, other than: My favourite dinosaur is the stegosaurus. The cat crossed the road. The tree is tall. While true, they don't have quite the same ring as "A rolling stone gathers no moss" (you spotted it, right, the blatant problem here? A rolling stone probably has crevices that gather moss, because to gather does not mean to grow).

We have inadvertently (phew, this post has meaning) stumbled onto questions about language, truth and culture. None of this can be summed up in ten words, or even in this post, or probably in a lifetime. So, I will distract you with another fact: Eskom (our electricity provider) built a pumped storage site that can power up in five minutes to support the national grid. It is built underground because the site it's built in is home to a rare bird that no one has ever heard sing. Or something.

That was more than ten words, you.

The immortality of dinosaurs

Saturday, late afternoon. That time of week when I write and post a new blog entry, which according to my tags will be a mixture of a review and musing. I like to think of each post as a Socratic dialogue using books as a vehicle. (‘Think’ being as far from reality as ‘hope’ and ‘belief’ – see here’s a bit of epistemology! And a homespun epigram: Hope is not a strategy. Take that to the bank, you.) This is when you open your RSS feed or a plain old browser in anticipation of said dialogue. Or will do, now that you know when I post.

All of this is an attempt to distract you while I figure out what I am going to write about. See, most of what I have read this week is techie news and a little of The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (about which I have still to develop an opinion). Then I thought, I can dust off one of the oldies, like Anthem by Ayn Rand, even that scene in A Passage to India by Henry James, where the protagonist undergoes an existential crisis in the dark of a cave.

Really what I want to talk about is the new Transformers movie (which looks epic, and fyi, is a discussion of good and evil, and to what extent violence is acceptable for a good cause. Ok, really it is a developed-world justification for violence as a necessary good where the moral values are patriotism and democracy (sarcasm hand)) and dinosaurs. Dinosaurs also often carry the weight of humanity’s sense of impending doom, which has a parallel in the fear of our own mortality when a character suffers, transferred to the security of your immortality when said character dies (and you don’t) onscreen or in a book.

I won’t, though, because I realise that the market of functioning adults for whom the event of the year is a movie based on a children’s series, is niche. (Although, seriously folks, they are AI robots that can transform into fast cars, mid-air, and Optimus Prime’s voice could convince me to buy ostrich steak for the good of the world (I am a vegetarian, but when I ate such things, ostrich meat was my least favourite).

Dinosaurs, though, are a different kind of steak. When I was young (most of primary school and the beginning of high school), I wanted to become an archaeologist (now, even spelling the word was a feat for a young’n so jest not). This was after my dreams of becoming a ballerina (I stopped dancing at about the time I was moving into point shoes), marine biologist (I am terrified large bodies of water), writer (no money) and teacher (no money) became unrealistic. (I was getting to the age when reality foisted itself on me – I later banished it.)

I used to draw cartoons of a dinosaur family, comprising improbably of a T-Rex and a Brontosaurus (that fairy of the dinosaur world) in primary and secondary colours. I say cartoons but they were not funny, even though my parents laughed hollowly at the last frames. I had playing cards, magazines, posters (alongside point shoes, Roxette and exercises meant to alleviate my short-sightedness) and a glow-in-the-dark skeleton that you could take apart and piece back together (I have one now too, but it doesn’t glow).

Funnily enough, Chrome shows a dinosaur when it can’t find an internet connection to open a website, as it is doing now.

So I was going to become an archaeologist, a less unrealistic goal - except that I have always hated Geography. And didn't have an affinity for Maths and Science. Which a teacher felt obliged to tell me as parent evening loomed. As I do, I acted as though this was old news (as if I simply didn't want to peel the tape from the walls when I peeled off the dinosaur posters). Although I can agree with one relevant point: I can imagine crawling around in the dirt with a tiny paintbrush searching for fossils for about the length of a workday. Then I would want a hot shower with extra hot asap followed by a bed with a fluffy duvet. Ok, I could scrap the bed and consider a tent, but I still want hot water. And in the morning I want to go home.

I later toyed with become a graphic designer (I lasted one year at advertising school, which is a real thing - I suspect the last year involves seminars in capitalism and the ills of empathy) (no money, except in advertising) and journalist (no money).

Book publisher! This way I could make close to no money with integrity. Assuming a loud voice and looking around: No, not really haha (whispering: but kinda). And then I specialised in Maths. Because I have no affinity with it (sarcasm hand).

This tortuous walk through careers loved and lost has become My Point, although my initial point was that dinosaurs (and transforming robots) are a) epic and b) that functioning adults who love one or both can come out of the closet now because nerds are taking over the earth.

In a last-ditch attempt to convince you that dinosaurs deserve your respect and adoration, consider the latest obsession with dragons in the wake of Game of Thrones. (FYI, in my youth I also taped up pictures of dragons, and drew pictures of dragons, but not funny ones, because you don’t make fun of dragons or dinosaurs (except in that T-Rex-making-the-bed meme, but we could count that as an awareness campaign for dinosaurs whose terrifyingness, fundamental to their survival, is undermined by their short and weak arms)).

Focusing. You like dragons, right? (Everyone likes dragons, duh.) Dragons are like dinosaurs except that:

• they breath fire
• they can fly (even if this is scientifically improbable - birds the size of emus and ostriches are too heavy to fly)
• they are fictional, and
• they can be tamed.

Tame creatures lack the fearsomeness of wild creatures, even the herbivores (ever gotten up close to a river buck?). Mostly, because, well, they’re tame. But even if I were in a theme park devoted to dinosaurs a la Jurassic Park I would not so much as scratch a belly, even if it were a stegosaurus.

The crack in this discussion (yes, this is a serious discussion, you) is that, well, dinosaurs are extinct, so we can’t know if we'd be able to break them like mustangs (probably) and the view in the rear mirror concentrates history so that we can tame its population in adjectives and metaphors. Dinosaurs ‘ruled’ the earth (they didn't give it up because they were weak – I’d put our chances against an asteroid at very low, even if we did maroon someone on it with a bomb) before we did.

So we give them names and even personalities - but we don’t tame them. (We don't tame robots either and I suspect the Transformers are humouring us. Fictionally, I mean. Obviously.) Buffered by time, they come to represent strength that is both familiar (lizards and things) but unfamiliar in sheer size (literally, because the composition of the air was different there and allowed for animals with a bulk that would crush them like a can today). They represent consistency, adaptation and diversity, and the fear that humanity could be wiped out remorselessly and without warning.

Also, dinosaurs didn’t embark on a consistent campaign of destroying the natural habitat and enslaving each other in the name of survival of the fittest. They just killed and ate each other in the name of survival of the fittest. And they couldn't use language so they didn't really conceptualise this either. Luckily for them, they didn't have to fight us for survival, though. I’d take my chances with the asteroid. The End

Stranger in a Strange Land: Part 1 of 2

Once again, I demand your patience. Yes, demand! A reviewer should never review a book when she has not finished said book. She should also never review a book straight after finishing. But a) rules only apply 75% of the time, b) rules bore me 75% of the time and c) Stranger in a Strange Land could be divided neatly into two Kindle singles, the second of which would be filed under a different category - some synonym for 'strange, even for science fiction'.

Despite my claims to unconventionality (literally), this is the 25% of the time when I seem to have introduced my topic in, um, the introduction. Don't worry, no doubt I will have meandered by the conclusion. But just where will I meander to, huh? The mind boggles.

The conundrum here is: What happened to the author, Robert A Heinlein, when he had completed 46% of the book? Here's a clue - or a red herring - he published the book in 1961, a few years after he had written it. Before that, he had written children's books (heavens!). Did he write it and then realise he could use dirty words and sex and indulge in aesthetic, political and humanist dialogues, under the guise of the free love espoused by people who didn't shower or wash their hair (I want to say something nasty here but shall refrain. Unlike Heinlein)?

Enough suspense. I am hungry and my leftovers from dinner are a-calling. From the fridge. I should probably get it checked it out then.

Space travel deposits and then 20-ish years later reclaims a human raised on Mars by, yes, Martians. Martians we now know to be either fossilised single-celled somethings or invisible. These somethings are an advanced civilisation who live for more than 100 years and once they die they become Old Ones who talk to and guide the living Martians. They can control pretty much everything: their minds, growth of their bodies, objects around them and so on. They can also die on command (!), called 'disorporation', and make things not be by reducing them to singularities. (This might also explain why they're invisible to dear Curiosity.)

The Man from Mars (nicknamed 'Mike') automatically becomes the richest and most powerful man ever, through some series of silly laws that are sillier than the ones the colonialists imposed. He finds refuge in the home of a philanthropist named Jubal, who is surrounded by lascivious women and two willing servants, who gets him out of his mess by handing power over to the Secretary General of the world. After Mike makes some policemen disappear (the official story is they got lost. Yes. In a suburb).

Aaaaaand this is where the bar at the bottom of the Kindle screen says '46%'. It should also say 'end of Book One - proceed to the book labelled 'strange, even for science fiction'?' In Martian, 'grok' means something apparently indescribable in human language but, to take some liberties, seems to be a verb for true understanding, where the objective truth and our subjective delusions meet. (Did I mention the Martians are highly advanced? Also in the way of the spirit. That's how they control things. (They sound like hippies to me.)) I don't grok Book Two.

Mike adapts quickly to human life, but he doesn't grok it. So he takes his show on the road, together with someone else's sweetheart. He begins to speak with all the idioms and double entendres of a fluent English speaker raised in America. He also delivers monologues on the philosophies of religion and human relationships, between orgies that to him symbolise having a glass of wine together, and trips to the zoo. And he still can't make or understand a joke.

Meanwhile, back at Jubal's ranch, amid pregnancy (implied to be the progeny of the Man from Mars) and a wedding with - wait - a celibate Muslim (shock, horror!), the ranch-owner delivers his own monologues on the philosophy of aesthetics, with so much passion that I am beginning to suspect the author is speaking through these characters. I fell asleep at this point.

At the end of Book One, I thought, this is unusual: to continue past what feels like the climax and resolution of the novel. Fun; it reminds me of Star Wars (that's a compliment). Sometimes it's best to stop while you're ahead (one valuable rule).

As I said, a reviewer should never pass comment before the end of the book. (Note this, my future reviewers. It's not polite.) Maybe there will be a plot development that says (from the author): "I know this has all been a bit much to stomach and I apologise for offending the sensibilities of sensible people. Here is why I did it and see, it works! Continue reading and praise my book in your blog post." Perhaps just an endnote. Even a footnote.

It won a pretty impressive prize, a Hugo Award (not a Booker or a Nobel though), if you're impressed by that sort of thing. Neuromancer won the same award in 1985 and I thought that was grand (seriously, no one has answered my question). (Also, did you know that they give out the award to films and that Jurassic Park won in 1992? Don't roll your eyes - deny you watch the repeats when they come on the movie channel, I dare you.)

Brontosaurus had been my favourite dinosaur since I was a child. Even though he may not exist. I like an underd-ino (har!)

Essentially (because this is the most conventional post I have written in a while, I will summarise My Point(s) - even though I am listening to Thom Yorke!) the characterisation reduces to the author's opinions (mostly negative) of the human race, thus losing the subtlety of Book One and makes it grand. These opinions are dated: diatribes on modern art, misanthropism, religion as akin to commercialism, how media distort reality and so on. We have heard them and read them ad nauseam. People waiting to cross the road talk about this!

Essentially (revised) in Book Two we're being preached to. By characters who think that orgies are a valid way to encourage social empathy. Granted, Mike is revealing (haha) social norms and mores for what they are: artificial. But that's a little ridiculous from a man who will choose the moment he will die - sorry, discorporate - and believes he is being educated by ghosts. Norms and mores are necessary for the existence of any life form with a brain. Watch your pets introduce themselves to other pets.

Having potentially stuck my foot in my mouth, I am going to finish the book and hopefully not have to retract this post (I won't delete it, that seems unethical somehow, like copying a picture of a model from a website and uploading it as your profile pic. Yeah, I'm talking to you). At the very least, I will grok the philosophies of aesthetics, economics and human relationships in the 60s. I always wanted to take that course at varsity, but it conflicted with the rest of my schedule.