Birthday Presents!

Birthday Presents!

Birthday Presents!, originally uploaded by djwudi.

A couple of birthday presents showed up in the mail today. Cool! Thanks to Phil for Mark Twain’s Roughing It and to Fernando for the sci-fi anthology The Starry Rift!

Medieval Fanfic

A short discourse on fan fiction in the Middle Ages

Chaucer seems to have attracted this sort of activity more than other writers–or possibly, we modern readers are more interested in tracking down this sort of thing when it’s done to a writer we admire as much as Chaucer. Chaucer left a lot of gaps in the Canterbury Tales, and other writers stepped up to fill them, writing tales for the poor Ploughman who never got one in the original, an extra tale for both the Merchant and the Cook, and a whole story about what the Pilgrims did once they got to Canterbury. Robert Henryson, a 15th-century Scottish writer, went so far as to write a sequel to Chaucer’s earlier work, Troilus and Criseyde, in which he punishes Criseyde for all the things Chaucer had her do to poor, noble Troilus.

(via Boing Boing)

Another Valentine’s Day Present

Valentine’s Day morning, as I was puttering about the house and getting ready for the day while Prairie slept in, there was a knock at the door. When I answered, I was handed a package from Amazon by one of our landlords. This was a little confusing, as I didn’t remember ordering anything, but it was definitely addressed to me. Okay, whatever…

The Cult of MacWhen I opened it, I was quite pleasantly surprised to find The Cult of Mac, which I’d put on my Amazon Wishlist not too long ago. On the shipping invoice was a nice little note from ‘Liz in Pittsburgh,’ who reads this site and decided to send me a Valentine’s Day present — cool!

So, many thanks to Liz! I got about halfway through yesterday as I was bussing around town, and have been enjoying all the stories of the Mac über-fans (and, unsurprisingly, seeing elements of myself in more than a few of the stories). I hope your Valentine’s Day was a good one as well!

Badass Bible Verses

Cracked has a list of the top nine ‘badass’ bible verses. Just for fun, I’ll list the verse citations here. Any guesses at what stories they’re referring to (before looking at the linked article or clicking through to the linked NIV versions, of course)?

  1. Exodus 2: 11-12
  2. II Kings 2: 23-24
  3. Ezekiel 23: 19-20
  4. Judges 3: 16-23
  5. Numbers 16: 23, 31-33
  6. Deuteronomy 25: 11-12
  7. I Kings 18: 24, 38-40
  8. Judges 15: 15-16
  9. I Samuel 18: 25-27

Silencio!

And here begins a 48-hour-ish period of self-imposed exile from the ‘net. Due to time’s slow march around the globe, Muggles across the world are already diving into the final year of adventures at Hogwarts, and while Prairie and I will be receiving our copies tomorrow (thanks to the express owls dispatched from Amazon), due to a prior engagement (a wedding that I’m assisting with photography duties for), we won’t actually be able to read them until Sunday (as Prairie is being kind enough to wait until we can read our copies — one for each of us — together).

So — while we may check e-mail accounts — all else is off limits, to prevent any possible spoiler trolls sneaking past and ruining the fun.

Until we’re done, then…

Eragon and Dragon Wings

I’ve not read either of Chris Paolini‘s young-adult fantasy books, Eragon or Eldest (presumably there will be a third at some point, as these are billed as being part of the ‘Inheritance Trilogy’), but I saw a trailer for a movie adaptation of the first book, to be released this Christmas season.

A couple things caught my eye in this trailer: firstly, both Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich star. So far, we’re off to a good start.

The third, though, was a decidedly unusual (in my experience) take on dragon’s wings. In general, dragon wings are presented as structurally similar to a bat’s wings: a thin flesh webbing over a skeletal framework. If there’s any variation at all, its rarely in the wings themselves, but rather in the physiology of the beast itself, with the two most popular variations being either a six-limbed creature (forelegs, rear legs, and wings as a separate set of limbs, generally just behind the forelimbs) or a more bat-like four limbed creature (with the forward set of limbs doubling as both forelegs and wings).

Six-limbed dragon Four-limbed dragon
six-limbed dragon four-limbed dragon

Personally, I’ve always been partial to the four-limbed variety as to my mind, even though we’re dealing with a fantastical creature, it feels more “accurate” for the universe we live in: I can’t think of any naturally occuring six-legged creatures outside of the insect realm; all mammals or reptiles I know of are zero-, two-, or four-limbed (and while it’s been years since I’ve had any sort of biology, I believe there is evidence that all such creatures are genetically four-limbed, and it’s just a matter of whether any of the limbs have evolved into not developing, as with snakes).

(As an aside — one of the strongest disappointments I had with the last Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was the lack of any screentime for the Chinese Dragon during the first challenge in the TriWizard Tournament. While only Harry’s dragon got any ‘hero’ time, we at least saw the miniature versions of all the others, however they were all fairly traditional dragons. I was really looking forward to even a glimpse of a Chinese style dragon, but was sadly denied. Pity, that.)

The upcoming Eragon, while using the more common six-limbed physiology, uses wings of a type I’ve not seen before. Rather than the bat-wing style, they look very much like bird’s wings, complete with feather-like patterning…however, they still appear to be skinned, not feathered.

Under the cut are a few screengrabs I took from the trailer that illustrate the wing style:

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Trekommendations?

Yes. Horrible title. Bad blogger. No donut.

Still.

As much as I enjoy Trek, I’ve never really explored the literary Trek work terribly much over the years. As it stands, my entire Trek book collection spans all of twenty volumes, only a few of which are novels.

So — any recommendations from others out there who might have explored more of the printed Trek universe? I’m always up for more additions to my “to read” stack….