The Romaniuc Files

Romania In Translation #45

2012-01-22T21:16:00.002+02:00

photo from Mallone Radu's facebook

An old woman pretends she has been raped by The Eye of Sauron

It all started when she noticed a strange eye peering at her when she went to the loo.

"For a while it was only sort of glancing. I pretended I didn't see it.
"But after madam Enache, who's a councilwoman at the mayor office too so she knows precisely what she's talking about, told me it's the Eye of Sauron, I started thinking it was doing voyeurism with me.
"Since then I'm going out carrying a stick. But what can a stick do when that's a huge beast, while I'm an old woman with my asthma, my heart, my diabetes.
"And then I think it raped me too.
"I went to the police immediately, didn't think twice about it. No use, it wasn't apprehended to this day."

#occupy Romania

2012-01-20T01:12:00.000+02:00

Another day of protests. There was fighting today.

Here's where we're at:

"Is anyone still using Internet Explorer 6?" (from Radu Velcea's facebook)

"Chuck Norris, Help!!!" (from Oana Nicolau's facebook)

Unirii Square - The PvP Area (from Sensations White's facebook)

Occupy Baia De Arieș

2012-01-18T12:05:00.000+02:00

Romania is caught these days in the #occupy movement. People are out in the streets. There's little violence, and everything looks so very Romanian. Everyone seems to be protesting on their own.

But of all the #occupy videos I find this to be the most endearing of all. It reminded me of Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell's novel: it's just a drop in the ocean, but what else is the ocean if not a multitude of drops?

Book Note: Harbor

2011-12-02T10:49:00.001+02:00

Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist (2011, translated by Marlaine Delargy, pub. Thomas Dunne Books)

The Swedes have a long and troubled relationship with the sea. They depend on the sea, and the sea is cold, and black, and unforgiving.

The Ales Stenar, an ancient formation of rocks arranged in the shape of a giant ship, is believed to be a shrine dedicated to the people lost at sea. It is thousands of years old.

In JAL's latest novel, Harbor, in the cemetery of Domoro, an island archipelago, there is a huge anchor with a plaque that reads "IN MEMORY OF THOSE LOST AT SEA." Its chain is buried in the ground. Where does it go, Anders the protagonist of the novel wonders:
"...burrowing down into the slime on the seabed, down into the mud and the blue clay, down to the point where nothing can live, where there is complete silence..."

Andres has lost a lot to the sea: his small daughter vanished without a trace on the ice during a picnic trip to the old lighthouse, and in the aftermath his marriage dissolved. A couple of years and he returns to Domoro a drunk, trying to find something to cling to, something to drag him out of the hollowed state he is in. As the story unfolds, Anders learns that more people had vanished at the same spot, and that the sea is not a simple body of water but rather a lovecraftian incomprehensible and evil being.

JAL seems to be on a dare with the Horror genre. His first novel was about vampires, the next zombies, the two most known and popular Horror topics. Harbor, his third book, goes for the Eldritch Horror, complete with ancient rituals, human sacrifices and indescribable forces. Also, there is a conjurer bound to a water elemental, who provides the deus ex machina device which solves the plot. But let's not reduce this story to its fantastical elements. There is a wealth of characters here which are used to draw us in, and make us participate, reminding me of Stephen King. Actually I'd recommend the book to any King fan, they won't be disappointed.

The writing is clear and pleasant, again bringing to mind the easiness with which Kings' novels are read. I liked how skillfully JAL uses objects to highlight a particular situation or effect - the dead fern in Anders apartment for example, which provides the pivot for his escape from depression. But it's when he writes about the menace of the sea that he gives us the most convincing, chilling passages.

Oana met the writer - a poem

2011-11-26T01:41:00.001+02:00

Oana met a writer today. A real writer.
Here's how it happened.

She had to go to the doctor to get something for the ankle she had injured while running.
The doctor was a University professor, old.
Really old.
After every visit at that clinic you're supposed to get a piece of paper
Where stuff like what's wrong with you and what medicine you need
Is written in boxes. The paper is written by the doctor and printed at the desk.
But this old doctor didn't care about learning how to use the clinic's computer
Or its software.
Instead he called the desk and said
"Send the writer over."

So Oana met the writer.

Here we are

2011-11-15T16:11:00.001+02:00

This is a "I know I've been neglecting this blog BUT" post. Right? There has to be at least one of these on the blog of every person who doesn't have blogging as a job. So here we go.

I know I've been neglecting this blog but I'm going through a phase where I'm not very interested in writing short notes in English about various subjects and posting them here. I'm lazy, lazy, lazy, and there's so much stuff I should be doing and fail doing (on time or at all) that having this blog to keep updated regularly is less and less fun.

But soon enough changes will happen and I'll have a regular online presence again. Hopefully before the end of this year.

The 99% are useless, says our mastermind

2011-11-05T10:46:00.000+02:00

Andrei Plesu is an important Romanian intellectual: a philosopher and politician, he is one of the few in the elite group of people who thrived in the old Communist regime and are still thriving now. He is, in my country, the 1%.

This is an excerpt from an interview published in the online edition of Adevarul (The Truth, Pravda, etc etc). The period mentioned by Andrei Plesu is his mandate at the External Affairs Ministry.

"I have said it before: having to deal, for two years, with almost all the important leaders of the world, I came to the conclusion that I am handed the proof for the existence of God. Because too rarely these leaders had the capacity to undertake such wide scopes. So I came to believe that, since with its "managers" now, the world is still working, the merit is that of the Grace of God..."

Right. So the world is working because of the 1%?
What exactly is Andrei Plesu saying? He explains how without the rich people and the church people this world cannot function. The 99% ? Irrelevant.

Sins live on people not on trees

2011-10-18T23:32:00.002+03:00

My friend Gary Cuba wrote a story about a man who can see other people's sins: For the Love of Sin. It's published in the Grantville Gazette, and can be read online for free right now.

Also, Dave Steffen's new story in Daily Science Fiction called The Quest Unusual is going to be available for reading in a day or two.

Book note: The Ritual

2011-10-17T09:09:00.000+03:00

The Ritual by Adam Nevill (2011)

A group of friends gets lost in the woods, a monster hunts them one by one. Classic story from too many horror films already. This book doesn't bring anything new to it. Clear, clean, correct prose. Clear explanations for everything that happens, at the end.

An easy to read book.

Book Note: Gods Without Men

2011-10-15T09:38:00.000+03:00

Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru (2011)

This book really wants to push a lot of buttons.

There's the Native Indians and the American guilt over their slaughter, and the Iraqi war, and 9/11, and Arab immigrants in America, and the financial crisis, and the Englishman in America, and the Internet, and unhappy marriages, and religion, and dysfunctional families, and hippies.

This is also a science-fiction novel, and in this regard is just as generous: we have alien encounters and abductions, we have an AI influencing the world economy, we have wormhole travel, and we even have the Body Snatchers type of horror.

There's also lots of very good writing.

Book Note: Sleight of Hand

2011-10-13T09:54:00.001+03:00

Sleight of Hand by Peter S. Beagle (2011)

A collection of nice stories, well written but lacking the playful poetry of The Last Unicorn, or its remarkable insight. These stories are straightforward (The Rock in the Park is a story that tells us art is magic by presenting us with a piece of art that is magic) and very feel-good-y (there are at least three stories in which the monster befriends the people it is supposed to hurt, death is circumvented, etc).

All in all, amazing read for children - I really am sorry I don't have a Romanian translation for Octavia - but less satisfying for adults.

Bragă

2011-09-25T20:06:00.001+03:00

We went to a small country fair today and I bought a bottle of bragă. Braga is the Romanian version of boza, a really bizarre refreshing drink. It's made by fermenting a dough made out of wheat bran and corn flour. The peculiar aroma is created by a cocktail of Bacillum Coli and Sacharomyces.

I never drank bragă before, but I knew about it - it's first mentioned by Xenophon of Athens (of the The Tousand fame) but it's history goes back way before Ancient Greece, to the Mesopotamians of 9000 years ago.

Now, the drink.

It is thick, with a smooth texture. It smells of fermentation, a little like a mild cheese, a little like flour. Not a very appealing smell, but not repulsing.

As for the taste, I was afraid it was going to be like one of those malt beverages (which I can't stand) but I was lucky. The taste is like that aroma of flour that lingers in the kitchen when you're baking bread is transformed in a cold smoothie. And a little sweet and a little sour. It goes down really easy.

A Romanian Poem

2011-09-20T14:41:00.002+03:00

We Have Time by Octavian Paler

We have time for everything.
To sleep, to run right or left,
to be sorry we made mistakes and to make mistakes again,
to judge others and absolve ourselves
we have time to read and write,
to correct what we have written, to be sorry for what we wrote,
we have time to build projects and miss their deadlines,
we have time to build illusions and rake over their ashes.
We have time for ambitions and sickness,
time to blame destiny and details,
we have time to watch the clouds, the advertisements or a certain accident,

we have time to chase away the questions, delay the answers,

we have time to crush a dream and reinvent it,

we have time to make friends, and lose them,

we have time to receive lessons and forget them afterwards,

we have time to receive gifts and never understand them.

We have time for all that.

We don't have time for a little tenderness.

When we're about to get there - we die.

I have learned some things in life and I am sharing them with you!!
I have learned that you can not make someone love you
All you can do is to be a loved one.
The rest... is up to the others.
I have learned that no matter how much I care
Others might not care at all.
I have learned that it takes years to build up your confidence
And only a couple of seconds to lose it
I have learned it doesn't matter WHAT your life earnedBut WHO.
I have learned that your charm helps you for about 15 minutes
But then, you'd better know something too.
I have learned you don't have to compare yourself to what one does best
But to what you yourself can do.
I have learned what happened to people doesn't matter
But it matters what you can do about it.
I have learned that no matter the cut
There are two faces to everything.
I have learned that you have to say warm goodbyes to your loved ones
This could be the last time you see them.
I have learned you can still go on for a long time
After you said you're finished.
I have learned that heroes are those people who do what must be done, when it must be done
No matter the consequences.
I have learned there are people who love you
But don't know how to show it.
I have learned that when I am upset I have THE RIGHT to be upset
But I don't have the right to be mean too.
I have learned that true friendship survives long distances
And this applies to true love also.
I have learned that, when someone doesn't love you as you want them to
It doesn't mean they don't love you with their entire soul.
I have learned that no matter how good a friend one is to you
They will still hurt you from time to time
And you have to forgive them for it.
I have learned it isn't always enough to be forgiven by others
Sometimes you will have to learn to forgive yourself.
I have learned that no matter how deep your suffering is,
The world won't stop in place because of it.
I have learned that your past and circumstances could influence
your personality
But YOU are the one responsible for what you become.
I have learned that, when two people are fighting, it doesn't mean they don't love each other
And the fact that they're not fighting is not a proof of love either.
I have learned that sometimes you have to first look at the person
And not at their deeds.
I have learned that two humans can look at the same thing
And they can see something else entirely.
I have learned that no matter the consequences
Those who are honest with themselves will get further in life.
I have learned that your life can be changed in a few hours
By people who don't even know you.
I have learned that even when you think you have nothing to give anymore
A friend calls you and you find the power to help them.
I have learned that the people you care most deeply about
Are taken from you too soon.
I have learned that it's too hard to discern
Where to draw the line between being amiable, not hurting people and standing for your opinion.
I have learned to love
So that I can be loved.

Romanians and God

2011-09-10T19:05:00.000+03:00

President Basescu and Jesus' Mom.

I found the photo on dollo.ro. I think it sums up perfectly the relation between us Romanians and Divinity. Whatever divinity that may be.

Stefan Sagmeister's list of how to be happy

2011-09-07T10:41:00.001+03:00

Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.
Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid.
I have to live now.
Being not truthful works against me.
Helping other people helps me.
Organizing a charity group is surprisingly easy.
Everything I do always comes back to me.
Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.
Over time I get used to everything and start taking it for granted.
Money does not make me happy.
Traveling alone is helpful for a new perspective on life.
Assuming is stifling.
Keeping a diary supports my personal development.
Trying to look good limits my life.
Worrying solves nothing.
Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.
Having guts always works out for me.

I found it on Jonathan Carrol's blog, but Stefan Sagmeister (who is an important graphic artist) has also a book out: Things I have learned in my life so far. Not all of his remarks would work for me, but it's still has a sense of "feel good without messing other people's lives" that I wholly endorse.

Romania In Translation #44

2011-09-05T00:26:00.002+03:00

OTV Headline for tonight:

Secret Files: A death threat comes toward Earth! Is it a comet or is it... The Antichrist?

MSG 1333: Will we defend against the fire in the sky with the Bible or with... military techniques?

Infinity past six

2011-09-04T10:53:00.000+03:00

The Romanian miniature playboy Irinel Columbeanu visited the Column of The Infinite, one of the most important sculptures of Constantin Brancusi.

Irinel said:

"In life one must keep hope and not stop at the sixth rhombus."

source: wikipedia.com

source: 7est.ro

Book Note: The Silent Land

2011-08-29T17:05:00.000+03:00

The Silent Land by Graham Joyce (2010)

Everybody has seen or read at least one Groundhog Day story. You know, where somebody is trapped in a day that keeps repeating or in a place they can't leave, until some moral wrong is repaired or the trapped protagonist undergoes a spiritual transformation of sorts.
Fortunately for me, The Silent Land doesn't really care about morals, but about marriage and love. It doesn't have two heroes, Zoe and Jake, but one: their couple. The empty resort they can't leave, the strange visions and apparitions, the alteration of time, everything that happens happens to them as a couple, which makes the ending, albeit predictable, very effective.
What are the forces that drive a couple apart, what keeps two people together... and how much time do we still have with each-other? How do we stay together forever? Can we? Should we?

"She sat on the bed watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he slept on. She reached out and held his hand, half-hoping that he would wake, half-hoping that he would not. She decided to leave it to the Fates. If he woke she would tell him about the horse outside. If not, she wouldn't. She had to ask herself why she wasn't allowing herself to tell him about some of the events that were happening around them. why she was staying quiet about these things was also a mystery to her. It was as if some primal part of her was terrified that no event in this place could be good for them. She felt - irrationally but with a conviction that came from deep in her bones - that with each new development, something was trying to insert itself between them. Only absolute stasis would live them alone."

Romania In Translation #43

2011-08-28T03:22:00.000+03:00

OTV Headline for tonight:

New informations about the house in Iasi haunted by ghosts and Strigoi.

Book Note: The Stone Gods

2011-08-24T09:26:00.000+03:00

The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson (2007)

A new planet to colonize, but this is not your Avatar-style science-fiction adventure:

"Spike, you're a robot, but why are you such a drop-dead gorgeous robot? I mean, is it necessary to be the most sophisticated machine ever built and to look like a movie star?"
She answers simply: "They thought it would be good for the boys in the mission."
[...]
"But you were also the most advanced member of the crew."
"I'm still a woman."
[...]
"So you had sex with spacemen for three years?"
"Yes. I used up three silicon-lined vaginas."

The book deals less with the war of sexes and more with the incessant war of humanity versus humanity. Touching, sad, and ultimately hopeful, it brings to mind Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. The Stone Gods is less accomplished, I think, but it touched me deeply. The theme doesn't shine quite as clearly,maybe, and the style has a pathos that sometimes is effective (the scene near the end where the mutant survivors are described) and sometimes falls flat (the ending didn't work for me at all), but despite a few flaws The Stone Gods is one of those books that talks to you.

"A small boy and a small dog, the dog hairless and pink, tongue lolling, body worn thin like hope, the boy with a bad stomach wound sewn up at his home or his hole, subcutaneous fat pushed on the outside like a roll of tripe. He had the dog on a lead and he was still managing to be a boy with a dog and the dog was still managing to be a dog with a boy because not even a bomb gets to wipe out everything, and this little bit was missed in the blow-up, the fall-out, the death-toll, the regrettable acts of war."

New Books

2011-08-19T12:07:00.001+03:00

Books for this Fall:

The Emperor's New Drugs by Irving Kirsch
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
The Third Bear by Jeff Vandermeer
The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson
Sleight of Hand by Peter S. Beagle
The Silent Land by Graham Joyce
Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru
The Ritual by Adam Nevill
The Flight Anthology #8

So, two short-story collections, five novels. The non-fiction book is for Oana and the Flight #8 is Octavia's.

I'm already two thirds into the Winterson book, and it's absolutely delightful.

Book Note: Timequake&Antes del fin

2011-08-16T09:33:00.000+03:00

Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut (1997), translated by Viorica Boitor, Humanitas 2009
Antes del fin by Ernesto Sabato (1998), translated by Gabriela Lozneanu, Rao 2000

These two books, written in the same period, both hunted by the coming of Death. Coincidentally, next to each other in my to-read pile.

Vonnegut's is a failed novel, as per his own confession. Timequake is a fix-up book made from the notes and scattered fragments of a failed novel-project, strewn together with thoughts and memories. I confess Vonnegut's style didn't work for me here. Everything was too unconnected, too scattered - every time I put the book aside for more than a day I had to read entire pages before finding where I was previously.
The book has an odd premise, the titular Time Quake throws humanity ten years back in the past, and everybody has to do everything all over again for a decade. But Vonnegut seems to have lost his bite, and he just sounds bitter and a little disappointed.

In the beginning of Antes del fin:
"I was told: 'You have a duty to finish it, the youngsters are desperate, restless and believe in you; you can't let them down."
Maybe because he wrote with the thought of not letting down the young ones, Sabato's book is warm and careful. It is a difficult book, with bloody political coups, with betrayals, and war. Also, ideals, passion, and responsibility.

"Maybe, through my anarchist formation, I was always the lone wolf, belonging to that group of writers who, as Camus also said it, 'can't put themselves next to those that make history, but rather in the service of those that endure it.'"

Also, this: "That is why, if failure in itself is a sad thing, failure in Art is always tragic." And how Artaud died.

Book Note: Home Fires

2011-07-27T12:44:00.000+03:00

Home Fires by Gene Wolfe (2010)

I can't say this book charmed me, but it sure was interesting. Gene Wolfe's take on a future seen through the deformed lens of a well-do Westerner. Aliens called the Os are fighting with the humans for control over colonies, but Gene Wolfe's hero goes on a cruise.

Skip Grison, the hero, is not an easy to like view-point character, he is in fact just as unpleasant as his name. Gene Wolfe dosen't waste any time establishing the fact, and Skip begins by making a despicable moral choice just for the sake of making a gift.

Skip is sexist to the point of caricature. He is the kind of boss that sleeps with his secretary. While his wife is away. Then, after he dumps the secretary and she has a breakdown, he muses: "[...] but without me what did she have? No daughter and no son, because I never gave her any."

But then again, Skip is a sexist man in a worse-than-sexist future, where even a beggar says: "I don' wash clothes. Need woman for wash."

And it's not only sexism that Wolfe satirizes here, but also the skewed and stereotypical way Americand perceive other people. When they first meet the afore-mentioned beggar, who is missing both hands, they immediately assume his hands were cut by Sharia Law practitioners. And when our protagonist has a little more time for reflection, he thinks: "How much help is the third world giving the human race against the Os? [...]"

Unfortunately, the pointed satire and the occasional comical contrast (like the title one, the home fires are what Skip tells us he kept burning at home while his wife was away, just as we readers see how disastrous the consequences of his affair with another woman are) don't suffice. The book feels too long. The pulp-ish plot is uninteresting. The book is heavy on dialogue, but all major characters (with one exception) sound the same. So maybe I would have liked this better served as a short story. Still, interesting Wolfe.

The Death of A Tango Dancer

2011-07-22T16:40:00.001+03:00

"I believe Bucharest is a miraculous city, magic. Things happen in it that have nothing to do with the cause-effect relation and defy logic."

Stelian Tanase wrote a novel about the Bucharest of the 1940's, when the Red Army occupied it. The novel is called The Death of A Tango Dancer.

"I believe Bucharest is a miraculous city, magic. Things happen in it that have nothing to do with the cause-effect relation and defy logic."

Here are a few excerpts from an interview with him. Full interview, in Romanian, on bookblog:

"[...] some things although they seem fantastical, author's inventions, are real. For example, the bricolage that Gogu makes out of the bodies of the victims of the 4th of April bombing. He makes a body out of many and sells it to some families so that they have someone to bury. The same with Sache the Skeleton, the hand-organ player, a character who dies aged 247, crushed by the blast of an explosion at the North Waystation. That's a story I found in the papers. The busker was the oldest in Bucharest, all the city singers accompanied him to the cemetery, and that wonderful bird that stood perched on his hand-organ was snuck in his casket to go with him to the Heaven."

"It's a magic novel. Gogu Vrabete has the gift. There's a tram cab in the novel sort of like the ship of the Flying Dutchman - it is and it isn't, appears and disappears. Angels appear pretty frequently, fantastical animals. These are signs that there's another reality beyond what we each know and sometimes it signals us... There is a certain descriptive precision and suddenly breaches appear, openings, like you're seeing an abyss. I wouldn't say it's a writer's trick, but it's the need to talk about a world as a whole, not about parts of it."

Simple enough

2011-07-21T15:12:00.000+03:00

Ideology. Random find on the web.

Romania In Translation #42

2011-07-12T23:43:00.000+03:00

OTV Headline for tonight:

Today the re-enactment of the Brașov murder took place. The assassin almost missed the address.

The Bullshit Detector

2011-07-06T14:02:00.000+03:00

Oana pointed me towards this video, this tutorial for getting rid of the fake information thrown at you. I think it's pretty good:

"With a sea of information coming at us from all directions, how do we sift out the misinformation and bogus claims, and get to the truth? Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine lays out a "Baloney Detection Kit," ten questions we should ask when encountering a claim.

The 10 Questions:
1. How reliable is the source of the claim?
2.Does the source make similar claims?
3. Have the claims been verified by somebody else?
4. Does this fit with the way the world works?
5. Has anyone tried to disprove the claim?
6. Where does the preponderance of evidence point?
7. Is the claimant playing by the rules of science?
8. Is the claimant providing positive evidence?
9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory?
10. Are personal beliefs driving the claim?"

Book Note: Oryx and Crake

2011-07-02T08:35:00.000+03:00

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (2003) translated by Florea Irimia (Leda 2008)

In a future where genetics create new species of animals but somehow people still watch movies on CD ROM's, where amazingly complicated microbes and viruses are created but people still get stoned with marijuana, where the Internet is the same as it is now (you even pay porn sites with a credit card).... well, whatever happens in that future is in this book. I didn't care about it, because, frankly, when the writer doesn't care about the setting and produces such a superficial image of a future, I can't care about whatever the characters do and what's happening to them.

Also, did you know that everyone in the future is obsessed with puns? It's like Margaret Atwood's future evolved out of Adam Roberts' Twitter feed!

Also, the translation is not recommended. Especially if you, err, appreciate the puns.

Cola

2011-06-30T16:36:00.000+03:00

My new favorite Cola: bio, fair trade, natural Coca flavor. Unfortunately it's so pricey you'd say the stuff is illegal.

Cute Porn. With turtles.

2011-06-25T13:25:00.000+03:00

We need more turtles.

Minus

2011-06-16T13:04:00.000+03:00

Plus or Minus by James Patrick Kelly is part of a series - a detail I inadvertently discovered when I clicked the wrong “Next” button on the author’s site and instead of getting to the second page of the same story I got to a completely different one, but following the same protagonist, Mariska Volochkova.

Mariska lives on a big spaceship. The beginning of the story tells us about it.

And that’s pretty much where, despite wanting badly to like this novelette, I found myself frowning.

This is another one of those stories written by a Western author from the point of view of someone belonging to another culture. James Patrick Kelly proves a little shallow - the name Mariska is Hungarian, but Mariska’s mother has a Russian name, Natalya Volochkova. (Yes, about Volochkova: that is like naming your American woman character Paris Hilton.)

Furthermore, the beginning is unflinchingly boring. It’s the kind of ancient approach to storytelling that follows the protagonist doing “usual stuff” and, conveniently, reviewing her present situation in clear sentences for the reader. She dislikes her life on the ship. Mother issues. Boss issues. The boring work. This reads like the mainstream stories fans of genre literature deride, but it happens on a space ship instead of a small town setting and without the human insight. All in tern, colorless prose.

Next, Mariska meets with a couple of friends who hang out together in a dreamfeed. In “boring mainstream lit” terms, they hang out and watch a movie. The movie, eh, dream, is amazingly boring as described; not only boring for a dream, but boring even for a Hollywood summer movie:

“Didit had created a circus framework; she was good at dream narratives. She had raised a striped tent and a rusting iron pyramid from a grassy field. A parade of outsized animals trudged down a dirt road: cows and polar bears and elephants and a whale with squat legs. Glint's contribution was sensory. She was an amateur artist and had painted the feed with moist summer heat, the smell of popcorn and barns and sweat, the tootling of a pipe organ and delicate taste of dust from the road. “

More info dump follows: what the character thinks about her friends, while she washes and dresses herself. Then she feeds herself with a “sippy cup of borscht!” Lovely. What else can a Russian with Hungarian name eat in the outer space? Then she complains “everything tasted bland, like oatmeal or crackers.” So, in space, the Russian food tastes like the American oatmeal? Wow, the US has clearly won the space race.

Going deeper in the story I notice how the shallowness of the story doesn’t stop at the cultural mishandling. Its characters, despite being presented as spacers and clones modified to live and function in space, have the same manner of speaking and use the same frames of reference as us, the readers; they compare themselves to Earth creatures like “monkeys” and “remoras.”

By now I’m on page 5 of the story and the notes I take for the review are looking more and more awful. And page 5 is the kind of info dump I dread:

“The ship ran on antimatter and water. Electrolytic cells dissociated hydrogen and oxygen from ice that had been treated back on Sweetspot. The hydrogen was used by the positron reactor for thrust, the oxygen refreshed the atmosphere in the crew's quarters.”

Fine, put all this technical stuff in, if you must. By why written like this? It sounds like something from a DIY booklet. People don’t like to read the instruction booklets, mister Kelly. They don’t even read them when they have to figure out how to do actual stuff. So why put such awful prose in a fictional work? Later, the characters watch a movie (a real movie this time) which is SF and “silly” because the science in it is unrealistic. This I think is an example of the back-patting in which the SF fandom indulges: we know better than that, the real sf is not done by dabblers. Unfortunately, the lack of literary quality in the writing makes the statement sound more than ironic.

Then, page 6, Something happens, the standard Emergency In Space. The protagonist reacts appropriately and looks around with “eyes wide with terror.” Next seven pages are concerned with trying to solve the problem, and the dramatic pathos is achieved through sacrificing most the characters in the story.

Which, in the context of this story, felt downright cheap.

With this last novelette, nominated for the 2011 Hugo and Nebula, the Locus Short Story Club ends. I think I'll refrain from writing more than passing notes about genre stories from now on. I don't intend to become a reviewer and I don't find shredding stories fun.

Book Note: Yukiguni

2011-06-13T13:13:00.000+03:00

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (1935) translated by Stanca Cionca (Humanitas 2008)

An indolent, rather unpleasant man from Tokyo has a series of affairs with a geisha from a mountain village. A sad story, casting a bleak image on the love affairs of men and women in the pre-WWII patriarchal Japan. Not a love story, an anti-love story.

The Things

2011-06-11T10:26:00.000+03:00

The Things is probably one of the most successful SF stories of the year, with nominations for the Hugo, the BSFA, Shirley Jackson award, Locus award, and the Sturgeon.

The story is a retelling of the John Carpenter film The Thing, where a bunch of people fight a shape-shifter alien in the Arctic. Peter Watts wrote the story from the alien's viewpoint rather than the human's, and his version appeared in Issue #40 of Clarkesworld Magazine.

The story establishes the Thing as an intelligent alien who has a different perspective on existence than the humans (and presumably other life forms previously encountered) do, and proceeds to enforce that perspective on them: while it first kills people only to survive, by the end of the story the alien decides he must force the entire human race to live as it considers it must be done.

"I was an explorer, an ambassador, a missionary. I spread across the cosmos, met countless worlds, took communion: the fit reshaped the unfit and the whole universe bootstrapped upwards in joyful, infinitesimal increments. I was a soldier, at war with entropy itself. I was the very hand by which Creation perfects itself."

Watts has created a missionary-soldier-alien for his story. And like the Christians in the Crusades, the Alien decides that the course of action is killing and forcing. Thematically this story makes a stern counterpoint to the Whale-Rape story where the missionary was the good guy and the idea of changing the natives' lives was regarded as perfectly sound.

My biggest beef with the story was its first-person narration. To whom does the Alien tell all this stuff? Why does it keep explaining, in great detail, how it is and how it thinks? Why does the alien make a narration out of his fight for survival, and who is meant to hear/read this account? At times the style is almost conversational, as if the Alien is sending a Dear Mom letter home.

Ah yes, the casual tone of the style… There is nothing Alien about it, nothing strange or out-of-this-world. Nothing. It's the most mundane, easier to comprehend style possible. Peter Watts' Alien has the voice of a Clarion writer. That probably explains all the award nominations!

As a conclusion: interesting thematic approach, but the literature sucks. And while I did find this story much better than Ponies or the Mormon Whale Rape Story, it's still worrying to see all those award nominations attached to it. We can only hope that SFF literature is better than that.

Romania In Translation #41

2011-06-09T23:59:00.000+03:00

OTV Headline for tonight:

She is the journalist woman cussed by the USL-PDL political lackey from Brăila!

Awards

2011-06-09T10:59:00.000+03:00

Sometime in the '90s the Romanian publishing house Olimp gave us this Nine Princes in Amber edition.

Notice what it says beneath the author's name? The Hugo and Nebula Awards!

Now anyone can google it and find out that Nine Princes in Amber did not, in fact, win any of the awards mentioned on the Olimp edition cover. But when the book appeared here, in the early '90s, who knew? It must have felt nice to be able to give the awards to the books you wanted.

I'd like to do that too. Especially since the Mormon Whale Rape Story won the 2011 Nebula. I can't do it the Olimp way, but I'm thinking about the Adibas, Mike and Puuma shoes that were ubiquitous in the Romanian markets post 1989.

I'm thinking: The Nebüla and The Hugö.

I am not sure how and when I'll award them. I might save them for my own oeuvre! Note to editors: stop rejecting my stories if you want a Nebüla Award winner in your magazine. (Or, for that matter, if you want a Nebüla Award for Best Editor.)

Romania In Translation #40

2011-06-09T07:31:00.000+03:00

OTV Headline for last night:

We are throwing a party: PP-DD raised 3% in the polls after yesterday's injunction!

Book Note: New Model Army

2011-06-04T09:29:00.001+03:00

New Model Army by Adam Roberts (2010)

This is the kind of book that works best when two people read it and then talk about it. It has a neat premise, the army of improvising soldiers using wifi and the Internet to wage unconventional war. It's a relevant topic for these days, with the Facebook and Twitter documented uprisings. But I couldn't be convinced by it - perhaps because the very-assuming narrative voice was so annoying. I also disliked heavily the scenes between the protagonist and the Colonel, many amounting to "We already talked about this, you and I... you said... and then I said... and then you did... and then I said... etc." This is lazy writing, or am I picky? And there are other scenes written so nicely...

After reading this book and his previous, Yellow Blue Tibia, I got the feeling that Adam Roberts is barely flexing his muscles for some really mind-blowing prose.

Romania In Translation #39

2011-05-31T00:16:00.001+03:00

OTV Headline for tonight:

The mysterious disappearance of Irina. Next, the first high-school student who attacked his headmaster.

Embarrassing Little Horses and the Raped Whales of The Sun

2011-05-30T10:12:00.000+03:00

The Locus Short Story Club launched its second round of discussions last week-end, on Kij Johnston’s Ponies.

I didn’t write an article about it because, frankly, the story was very bad. I was so sure I’d produce a bad-taste, boorish critique that I simply didn’t even try.

Then the story won the 2011 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. And I seriously started to wonder if I actually like Science Fiction and should keep reading it, or the fact that I still do is just a tattered remain of my childhood self that I ridiculously cling to?

I have read Spar, by the same author, a story which went on to win the Nebula Award in 2009, and avoided her since, because that was one of the most embarrassing things about sex I had ever read. Ponies isn’t about sex at all, its a vignette allegory so heavy-handed with its own instruments that one of the Locus commentators notes: “The popular girls in “Ponies” aren’t all named “Heather,” they are named TopGirl and FirstGirl. This is about as close to allegory as C.S. Lewis naming Aslan “Jesus.””

But I really do appreciate that a story about the need for conformity and status has won the Nebula Award. The irony is precious, although I think it needs a Hugo to really shine.

And now I'll briefly share with you (if you care) my impressions about That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made by Eric James Stone, the third story of the Locus Short Story Club (to be discussed starting June 5th), and the recipient of the 2011 Nebula Novelette Award.

Also, the story re-titled on Facebook by writer&editor Nick Mamatas as the Mormon Space Whale Rape Story.

The story is about a Mormon missionary on the Sun who convinces the sentient species living there that their way of living is wrong and they should change.

No really, go read the story if you don't believe me. It's the classical propaganda-style bullshit, Christian Wise Man explains to Native how primitive and backward its world-view is, the Native is charmed. It even has a Woman Scientist Who Is Useless in it. The arguments against introducing a foreign religion are superficially laid out and never answered, in a very annoying show of disrespect for the reader:

"“You’re introducing instability to a culture that has existed for longer than human civilization,” she said, raising her voice. “They were traveling the stars at least a hundred thousand years before Christ was born. You’re teaching them human myths that have no application for their society.”

“No,” I said. “Dr. Merced, you are free to tell the swales what you have told me: that you believe our teachings are false. But the swales who have joined our church have done so because they believe what we teach, and I ask you to please respect them enough to allow them that choice.”"

Of course, the priest demonstrates the might of God to the whales inhabiting the Sun, the Woman Scientist is proved silly, although she remains highly attractive.

Following we have an example of the virtuosity the author shows with words and phrases, otherwise said, his mastery over literature:

"The Sol Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had only six human members, including me and the two missionaries, but there were forty-six swale members. As beings made of plasma, swales couldn’t attend church in the chapel, of course, but a ten-foot widescreen monitor across the back wall showed a false-color display of their magnetic force-lines, gathered in clumps of blue and red against the yellow background representing the solar interior. The screen did not give a sense of size, but at two hundred feet in length, the smallest of the swales was almost double the length of a blue whale. From what I’d heard, the largest Mormon swale, Sister Emma, stretched out to almost five hundred feet — but she was nowhere near the twenty-four-mile length of the largest swale in our sun."

What can I say, the man surely knows how to use his but to break a phrase, doesn't he?

Go Mormons. I think they're a bit behind the Scientologists, who have that Writers of the Future thing, but with this award I can see the Mormons are Highly regarded too. Let's make the whole fandom a big religious sect and teach the likes of Atwood and McCarthy how to write proper Science Fiction!

The Ghost Forest of Piatra-Neamț

2011-05-29T12:03:00.001+03:00

A quiet guy.

Farewell to Snape

2011-05-26T08:53:00.000+03:00

Sometimes I watch Romanian movies and can't help but notice that our film-makers forget too often the importance of Story...

These are Alan Rickman's words written as a farewell after playing Severus Snape in seven movies:

And there's this, coming from Associated Press:

"Horror writer Stephen King's first play, The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, featuring haunting melodies by rocker John Mellencamp, is finally ready for the stage."

Unfortunately it is a musical. I don't like musicals. Actually, I don't like King's latest writings either, so... And it's not even King's first play, because he wrote another one (very short, true, but still) where God wrecked the Earth by mistake. It was a comedy. And it actually was funny, but then again, I was a teenager when I read it.

Book Note: Haru no Yuki

2011-05-24T14:19:00.001+03:00

Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima (1966) translated by Angela Hondru (Humanitas 2009)

This is a layered tragedy, a love story, part Buddhist wisdom part Menippean satire, but somehow the compassion needed for the love story gets cancelled by the Buddhism and the satire. It didn't work for me.

Dancing your way to the door

2011-05-23T16:27:00.000+03:00

I remember that about ten years ago I was rehearsing at the National Theater in Bucharest in Gogol's The Government Inspector and there was this big commotion at some point because an actor felt treated wrongly and started to mess up the rehearsals.

And there was an actor in a production of Hamlet I saw who made an impromptu step dance in the middle of the "to be or not to be" soliloquy.

But this one tops all:

The Jaguar House, in Shadow

2011-05-21T16:11:00.000+03:00

Following in the footsteps of the British SF review magazine Vector, the Americans of Locus are starting their own online Short-Story Club, which is absolutely amazing. There are some very interesting artists in the Locus staff or part of their community and one can only hope they’ll partake in the conversation.

The discussion starts tomorrow with Aliette de Bodard’s “The Jaguar House, in Shadow,” which is nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula awards this year.

I have not read anything by Aliette de Bodard before. I knew vaguely that she wrote alternate histories with Aztecs, and that didn’t seem particularly interesting to me. Thing is, the author is French, but she writes from the perspective of Aztecs, and I just don’t get these things. Am I supposed to believe she’s more insightful than a Mexican writer about the history and people of those lands? Actually, what’s with all these French, British and American authors writing stories from the perspective of Russians, Africans, and South Americans? Is this a sort of cultural conquest I wasn’t aware of?

Crazy stuff.

So. Back to the story. I found it online on the author’s website, here. It first appeared in Asimov’s, July 2010.

The story starts with a short fragment written in italics and ends the same way. In these framing passages a character takes teonanacatl, or as the non-aztecs know them, shrooms, and then reminisces. Unfortunately, the story taking place between these shroom ingesting seances is not a psychedelic trip, but a narrative consisting of memories, in a cosily arranged time-line.

The story concerns an officer who attempts to rescue a friend imprisoned by their former commander. There are no interesting science-fictional ideas, and the details about this alternate world dominated by Aztecs are only thrown in as info-dumpy asides. In the story's defense, it does give the feeling of being part of a greater milieu. Perhaps a collection of stories or a novel set in the world this author has created would offer a better read than a novelette.

The prose is readable. However, after the first few lines of dialogue I thought to myself, oh no, oh boy, tell me this isn’t a as-you-know-bob scene, please please please please, but it was exactly that kind of dreaded info dump. As the protagonist bluntly says: “You know it.” And there is an abundance of characters who say things slowly, carefully, savagely, urgently, and they say those things with calm, steady, thoughtful, toneless, or steadier voices.

So I didn’t like the story, but go read it for yourself and come and tell me if and how I missed it. The fans liked this story, since it’s nominated for a 2011 Hugo. The SFWA loved it too, since it’s up for a Nebula. Who am I to get pissed about useless adverbs, eh?

Book Note: Great Apes

2011-05-19T14:45:00.001+03:00

Great Apes by Will Self, 1997, translated by Ciprian Șiulea, Polirom 2009

One day Simon wakes up crazy: the people in the world are all chimps.

Interesting? Not interesting? I, for one, can't say I was mesmerized.

It's a satire but a bit all over the place. I found some memorable passages like the one where Simon admits to not comprehending the everyday news unless he casts his sons in them: the older son as a Hutu, the younger son as a Tutsi... What an accurate summarization of the absurdity of human violence and history Self offers there!

But what an awful translation... Mr. Șiulea is wrestling with the language and it is an ugly battle, with the book as sole victim.

Summer movies I won't be seeing

2011-05-15T13:03:00.000+03:00

I am old and I can't have fun anymore.

Hey girl. I'm Conan. Wanna oil me?

No I'm not.

I just don't like dumb movies.

I mean, look:

Conan 3D - It's the story of Conan the Beach Dude. He rules all the bitches on all the beaches. He is the son of burger kings. They call him Conan the Californian.

Green Lantern - It's a very ugly movie. For some unknown reason the producers have decided that a film based on CGI must have hideous CGI. But wait, the story must compensate, it's... it's about a guy who's given a ring which has Special Powers and he... becomes a Super Hero! So no, nothing compensates for the failed sfx.

Captain America - Basically this is the first film in a long series. I'm more interested in some of the sequels, namely Sergeant Greenland and Chairman China. I love the concept of the hero, though, the tragic of it: they gave him a small round shield ("Bullets can't pass through it!!! Just make sure they hit the shield."), made him wear his underwear on the outside and sent him to battle.

Thor - It's the story of an Asgard God who relocates to USA. I have a neighbor, Titi, who did that. I know all about it. You meet Natalie Portman, save the world, than go back home. If you're lucky, like Titi was, you return with enough money to start some nice business at home. If not, next you try Italy.

And then there's Smurfs 3D, which is... Well, it is. And it must be killed with fire.

The rest are basically sequels... one about the toy robots, others about comic book heroes, the Harry Potter one, bla bla bla. Not one interesting SFF movie in the line-up this year. There's no Sunshine, no Moon, all is crap.

But at least is Crap 3D!

Pictures of hills

2011-05-11T09:01:00.001+03:00

I like hills.

I made a trip at the beginning of the week, from Piatra-Neamt to Botosani. It's a nice journey, passing through three Moldavian counties, Neamt, Suceava and Botosani. I grew up in a village north of Botosani. I love these places.

Most of all, I love the hills.

Growing up surrounded by them was perfect. Hills are great for children. Hills you can defeat, they're not mountains to stop you. Hills were obstacles we could overcome, and isn't that a great thing to teach a child, that life is made of obstacles he can overcome?

Here's some pictures. They're photographed through the windows of the van, which unfortunately were not the cleanest.

The mini-van.

You get to the top of the hill and it turns out that the yellow line you saw... was this.

An old house.

Sheep pen. Where's the sheep?

The Siret River. Also, the sheep missing in the previous picture.

The pub in one of the small villages we went through.

Must be the spring, but I frakkin' love this country.

What I wish for in this very moment...

2011-05-08T16:58:00.000+03:00

I want to CT scan my whole body, then download the information in a 3D printer and cast a life-size replica of myself, then cut it open and see how I really look on the inside.

Creepy? Sexy?

Discuss.

Vampire love talk

2011-05-07T10:59:00.001+03:00

Short fragment (faithfully translated) from a story workshop-ed by someone at AtelierKult:

"I entered like a mist into her bedroom, I waylaid the brute like an electric chainsaw and emptied him of blood right under her traumatized eyes, then I confessed Lenora directly:

'From now on you are my woman forever! You are my item, nothing else! For the simple fact that I'm investing in you the love that could fuel an entire Cosmos you belong to me, bitch, and you are tied to me beyond any laws or rules! You have no right to die or live without your thoughts constantly focused on me. Yes, I read your thoughts, honey! You are me! Deal with it! You're like my hand or my foot! You don't exist on your own!'"

Lo-tech

2011-05-06T17:10:00.000+03:00

Our ancient Nokia mobile phone died a couple of months ago, when Oana accidentally dropped it in her cocoa mug. I fished out of a drawer a Siemens phone and used that for a while but it didn't work very well. Especially not outside, where it was pretty much impossible to carry a conversation using it (Yeah, what?... What did you say?... What?... Did you say anything?... Is that your voice?.... Hello?) so we reluctantly took a trip to an Orange shop to get a new phone.

Now, as I knew from the media, I was going to be faced with the dilemma: Apple device or Android device?

I leaned towards Apple. Long-time user. On the other hand, Android had a cooler brand name. Decision time... but then I found our New Phone.

All the other phones looked the same from then on.

We had to get it.

Our new phone, the one and only ZTE-G S302:

It has only the basic functions, no games, no fancy ringtones, no internet. It's a phone, talk&listen type. Love it.

(It has some special customizations though, because it's marketed towards elderly people. It has Voice Keys and a big orange SOS button on the backside.)

Pulped in Romania

2011-05-05T09:11:00.001+03:00

I had a whole shelf full of them: Romanian Pulp stories. I found some of the survivors and scanned the covers.

These are all from the '60s, from a series called Clubul Temerarilor - The Temerarious Club, published by Ed. Tineretului - The Youth Publishing House.

(click on image for larger version)

Jean Bart 1

Jean Bart 2

Uhm - the hyena's son

Special Mission

Miu the haidouk

Saint Bartholomew's hours

Iovita the walachian

The magic formula

The frozen geyser

The headhunters

Book Note: The Wise Man's Fear

2011-05-04T11:51:00.000+03:00

At some point the protagonist is kidnapped by a Fairy who kills men by having sex with them. He survives. As a reward, the Fairy teaches him about 50 sexual techniques only described by their names, such as: The sigh toward the ear, Circling the moon, The harrowed hare.
The kissing of the woman's flower.

What's this, you ask, Porn Talk for The Prude Nuns Vol. 1?

No. It's Epic Fantasy.

The book has 1.4 kilos. It's a nice adventure story, but way too long. The awkward sex stuff (there's more of it...) should have been cut, at least.

Sans Fun

2011-05-03T12:19:00.001+03:00

I came across this article on SF Signal where the author argues that SF doesn't have to be High Literature and can simply be entertaining.

I grew up reading SF and Fantasy.

I grew up in a small town in north-eastern Romania, a country which was called a Socialist Republic back then. I loved SF and Fantasy, I found it fun, and I never got the feeling from anyone around me that it was not High Literature. On the contrary, I remember that I was a kid, in my first years of school, and people congratulated me for reading Solaris, or The Master and Margarita, or The Cyberiad, or Roadside Picnic, or Taras Bulba. And later Kafka or The Glass Bead Game. These were entertaining and difficult. Nobody ever told me they were not SF, nobody told me they were not High Literature.

Nobody, thank you very much, told me as a kid that SFF can be " at its most basic form, entertaining."

Entertaining?

No... It should be, it has to be, at its most basic form, ART.

I have the TV for entertainment. I have birds outside my window for that. I have eight playful cats around the house for that. Let my literature be artistic.

Finally

2011-05-02T08:48:00.001+03:00

I was waiting for it.

With this abundance of films with all sorts of people who wear their underwear over their pants, I was expecting for such a film, and here it is:

The Legend of The Mighty Soap. An Estonian short.

It's about a piece of soap with superpowers.

Romania In Translation #38

2011-04-29T22:28:00.000+03:00

OTV headline for tonight:

Behind the curtains of the Royal Wedding.

We were offered this thoughtful description of the event, by Mister Condurațeanu:

"The wedding was like a beautiful movie. With Russian nobility."

Mei, what's the best book ever?

2011-04-26T23:51:00.001+03:00

The Wise Man's Fear is The Smart Cat's Treasure!

Romania In Translation #37

2011-04-26T01:37:00.000+03:00

OTV Headline for tonight:

The Generic band sings for the OTV viewers in the second day of Easter.

Book Note: The Sorcerer's House

2011-04-24T23:35:00.000+03:00

In this book the Villain is Really Bad, he hits a woman cop three or four times; fortunately there's a man cop around to handle the situation. At the end of the book there's a duel. The prize? The Kingdom and a harem...

This is not one of Wolfe's good novels. Besides being terribly quaint it offers ennui instead of catharsis. It so happens that when the tricks don't work you find that the mirrors are the cheap kind and the smoke is really stingy.

Full Spring No Bunnies

2011-04-24T22:28:00.000+03:00

We are waiting for the Flaying Spaghetti Monster, the Squinting Cat and I.

Book Note: Noruwei no mori

2011-04-22T23:12:00.000+03:00

Noruwei no mori by Haruki Murakami (translated by Angela Hondru, Polirom, 2002)

I should have read this book 15 years ago, along with Catcher In The Rye or, better, instead of it. It's way more honest about young men than Salinger's novel, actually it's more honest about pretty much anything. But men in their twenties, yeah... whenever a woman appears in Murakami's Norwegian Wood you pretty much know that the protagonist is gonna bang her sooner or later.

Look! A book!

2011-04-20T16:44:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I found a pleasant (and only slightly bent) surprise in my mail box:

It contains 21 stories published between 2007 and 2011 by my friend Gary Cuba in various magazines such as Jim Baen's Universe, Abyss&Apex or Flash Fiction Online. It's a custom-made collection, a lovely print-on-demand service provided by Anthology Builder, a data base of short-stories from which the reader makes his own selection and has his book nicely delivered at home.

Steampunk. The Second Revolution, ed. Adrian Craciun

2011-04-17T14:08:00.000+03:00

I have mentioned this book before on my blog, pretty much bitching about it every time (about the slim chances for a positive outcome, the TOC gender imbalance, the cover).

Now that I've read the book, I don't think I care much about describing and dissecting its flaws or virtues. First of all because I'm interested in what this book tried to do, and secondly because I don't want to become a tool in the incessant, joyously absurd war that goes on between the various factions of the Romanian fandom.

So why is this book interesting? Well, it tries to align the Romanian fandom (which this book represents) with the bigger, and richer, Anglo-American fandom. We write Steampunk too, if that's where the genre's at. So say the Romanian writers, and the editor Adrian Craciun who selected the stories.

So let's see how and what is in the Romanian Steampunk anthology...

The Editor's Word. A Moment of Craziness by Adrian Craciun

"The first echoes were a bit... depressing. The first answer I got - from a woman author - was something like 'The theme doesn't appeal to me. Not in the least...' I received worse. (But I'm not going to tell them.)"

The brief fore-foreword hints at the reluctance of the writers towards the theme. (I've had an online conversation with mr. Carciun where he mentioned he received a total of twenty-or-so submissions. It's a bit of an ingrate mission to produce an anthology in these conditions.) But then the editor promises us he selected the stories that made it in the Table of Contents with our reading pleasure in mind.

Foreword. "To the boulevard, stoker! To the boulevard!..." by Stefan Ghidoveanu

This second foreword, written by a venerable and beloved member of the fandom, is not subtle anymore: this book had everything against it.

"First of all it's the theme: steampunk... Pretty when it's written or filmed by others, in places where steam machines, running warm water or buildings with more than ten floors existed since the second half of the XIXth Century..."

"Second of all [...] As I made my way through the Romanian publishing system, more often than not I had to acknowledge that the Romanian authors can't write on spec..."

"Third of all [...] no anthology or multiple-authored collection in the last 20 years managed to live up to its expectation..."

But has the Steampunk anthology surpassed all these challenges? Stefan Ghidoveanu is enthusiastically convinced that it did, and we turn the page to the first story...

Miss Vu's Morning Walk by Ioana Visan

There is something delightfully right* about Ioana Visan's fantasy where Stephen the Great, the legendary XVth Century Voievod, has devised a way of lifting the Moldavian cities off the ground during Ottoman attacks. Now we're in 1877, the Independence War is waging, but for the civilian population of the city of Iasi the existence is peaceful, and while there is a sabotage and a big accident happening in the story, the atmosphere is pleasant and not threatening, calling to mind Miyazaki's Laputa or Kiki films.

* I'm not sure I know what steampunk is and what isn't. But Stephen the Great was something of a champion-warrior; he won 46 of his 48 battles against the Ottomans. He also had to fight off the Hungarians and the Poles who wanted to subdue our lands in those days. And in this story he thought about building huge mechanisms that protected the cities. That's punk enough for me.

Stylistically there is a lot of room for improvement and I would have liked for a more assured writing hand:

"'What happened?' he asked, frowning at the sight of The Swan, whose clumsy landing lacked the usual grace, because of the girl's hurried maneuvers.
'The Tatarasi has collapsed. It's horrible! Ruined houses, smoke and flames everywhere and the people...' Raluca's voice broke. Behind the glasses, her eyes grew soft, but she kept her temper. 'Fill the tank up quickly, please, I have to get back. Fill it," she said again emphatically, so that he understood it wasn't a trifle."

The Black Castle by Costi Gurgu

"'So be it,' Luca said. 'Bad news. In the end it's only us, Wallachia, the Severin Banat and Moldavia, to stand against the Cro."

Middle Ages. The Romanian provinces come united against an un-earthly enemy. We have mind-controlling aliens, we have sword fighting, a commandeered extraterrestrial balloon, all in all the story feels very pulp. What it really needs is some humor, though.

From the Gypsies by George Lazar

More humor, less unity of motherland. In this version of the Present, Moldavia is still a communist country, separated from the Romanian Federation. The intellectuals have been purged, and the technology has reverted to coal powered machines and even those are barely working anymore... so everybody goes to the gypsies.

"The gypsies were great tinkerers, everybody knew it. So, after '31, with the big engineer purging, along with all the other intellectuals, they had become irreplaceable, comrade Popoviciu explained to his wife for the hundred time. That's why the Popular Republic tolerated them , unruly as they were, since, without them, anything resembling a mechanism would have soon ceased to function."

The story of Calistrat Hadîmbu from Vizireni, cowardly killed by the uncle Raul Colentina in an inn on the outskirts of Bucharest by Michael Haulica

Calistrat is a peasant who misbehaves the moment he gets in the big Bucharest. Trying to escape a pursuer, he crosses the barrier in the other Bucharest. Here, as if in a dream, he becomes a playboy and a warrior, enrolled in the crew of the Vengeance Yell dirigible. He falls in love with a woman who experiences strange metamorphosis, conquers Denmark for an unclear reason, and flies in the first flying self-propelled heavier-than-air machine. Then, back in Bucharest, he is killed in the brutal, gratuitous way that dreams end.

Michael Haulica has his highly particular style that you either love or hate:

"Stunned stood there Calistrat Hadimbu and he didn't know what to believe anymore, he didn't know if he could even believe his own eyes, for nothing he rubbed them, for nothing he coughed, for nothing he pinched his cheeks and his elbows and his belly. Magdalena Ghica was a giant fish and in front of this happening he found nothing better to do than ask himself:
'So, is this woman a woman or is she a fish?'"

Lead Souls by Stefana Cristina Czeller

A guy whose hobby is building little toy soldiers is hit but a car in the street and wakes up in the body of the XIXth Century poet Vasile Alecsandri. And the poet is not quite the romantic figure he expects.

I have decided against translating a fragment from this story because it's written in a language riddled with regional and archaic words, and I'm really not up to translating that.

The Long Way Home From the Skies by Marian Truta

Probably my favorite story in the book, although I can't say what's supposed to mean.

After the first cosmic flight, Cosmonaut Gagarin lands... in XIXth Century Romania, in the courtyard of Ieronim. General puzzlement ensues and Gagarin is invited to the local boier.

"Ieronim watched Gagarin sidewise, swinging because of the bumps in the road.
'What are you thinking about, Yuri Alekseyevich?'
Gagarin smiled.
'I'm thinking about my own things, citizen Ieronim. How I flew through the stars and how I fell in your backyard.'"

The Last Hourglass by Oliviu Craznic

This is another story that left me baffled. I'm not sure I know what I'm talking about, but here's what I think it's going on, the Time is running out, effectively, and there's little Time left until the end. In some places, like the Britan, it seems Time has finished already. And murders happen, and there's a very baroque mystery in there. But I'm not sure. Also, Time is non-linear.

"There had been twelve such attacks, they claimed. One freshly butchered body, for each different part of the city. No head, no members. Impossible to identify, they wore common doublets, with magnetic buttons. They only identified Cristian David, by the medical tag he wore on his chest, if that wasn't planted there. The so-called electronic watch had disappeared along with his hand. And, after each such attack, the cracks in the reinforced ceramic deepened and the whole temporal system went through bigger misfires. The machines malfunctioned more often. The smog traveled further and faster. And the time ran out quicker."

The Alchemist by Mircea Oprita

Constantin Nazat in an alchemist trying to manage his business in a XXIst Century Romania under monarchic rule. This is the only reprinted story in the book. It's a bit too long.

Prophecies about the past by Aaron Biro

Computer science pioneer Grigore Moisil creates an AI in 1970, but the machine proves too bright for its own good when it makes an unfortunate prediction in front of the Secretary General. Grigore Moisil asks his student Aaron Biro to smuggle the AI across the border. Vladimir Colin, a fantasy writer who died in the early '90s, makes a cameo as a Securitate informant.

"'Welcome, Grig,' mister professor says. 'Answer. Grig, who are you?'
'Comrades, welcome. My name is Grig, model 1970, and the instructor of my knowledge base was the university professor doctor Grigore Moisil. I became operational on the 1st of September 1970, when my instructor chose my name and taught me how to sing a little song. Would you like to hear it?"

You need to have watched a certain era of Romanian television in order to 'get' the ending, something I don't think serves the story.

The Revolution Nostalgia by Florin Patea

"'How I miss the days when we planned Revolutions,' Alecsandri said in an outburst of sincerity."

Something of an All Star Cast with Romanian political figures from the XIXth Century in a fable about the uselessness of revolutions... and an well-chosen finale to an anthology subtitled The Second Revolution, published in a country that still can't understand there's irony in the lines "And the solution/Is another revolution."

So there.

That was in it.

I'm not going to draw any sort of conclusion, I can only hope I got you a little interested in what we Romanians made of this thing called steampunk.

What I'd like improved for the next one? Some of the Big Names in the Romanian fantastic literature added to the TOC. (Like Cartarescu or Florin Manolescu.) That would raise the bar.

The publisher announced the next anthology in the series is themed The Living Dead. I'm not having a high opinion of the publisher right now, who failed to deliver the 4 issues of the Galileo Magazine last year upsetting its subscribers. I do hope that their Anthology Series will fare much better.

Book Note: Missing Kissinger

2011-04-10T12:25:00.000+03:00

This book turned out to be rather surprising for me, because I expected to love it and I didn't.

What really shocked me was that some of the stories in this book try to transform the atrocities committed in Palestine into something humane, and even cute, legalizing the Israeli presence in that country. It creeped me out BIG TIME. (From Wikipedia, on the Gaza masacres of 2009: "The conflict resulted in between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinian and 13 Israeli deaths.^[46] Critics called the high number of civilian casualties a massacre.", and etc etc etc.)

The collection consists of one or two page long short-stories. Some are really clever and emotional, but they are drowned by stories that don't make sense and end leaving the reader baffled and untouched emotionally. The book is strange like that, with its handful of brilliant stories (Breaking the Pig, Hat Trick, Hole in the Wall) lost in a sea of bad writing and, what's worse, Israeli war propaganda.

It put me off Keret for quite a while... (I do, however, still recommend you search for his short-stories available for reading online, to get a taste - Freeze, The Nimrod Flip-out, really good stories, the ones that made me order one of his collections.)

Quite stunning

2011-04-09T14:13:00.000+03:00

From the British Musical Me Me Me:

Short Story Recommendation

2011-04-08T23:50:00.000+03:00

A man and a woman stand in a room. They watch each other. Something unexpected happens and the woman has to leave. The man waits for her. He waits for eight billion years.

"Stepping backwards is more difficult than walking forwards. But turning around is nearly impossible, and I give up. In little steps, I retreat to the place where I began. The carpet remembers my feet, but the carpet feels only half-real. Or my feet are beginning to dissolve. The woman will be here soon. I tell myself that even when I don’t believe it, and the fear grows worse."

Beautiful story, in the March issue of Lightspeed Magazine: Woman Leaves Room by Robert Reed.

What's in my backpack

2011-04-07T01:23:00.000+03:00

I am a paragon of practicality and a tech guru:

1. Case Logic Canvas Backpack; pretty spacious, actually.
2. Moleskine travel notebook. It makes me feel like Hemingway, until I start to write in it.
3. A Draft I'm working on at the moment, which doesn't make me feel like Hemingway.
4. Parker ball-pen & unknown brand Marker.
5. Two short-story books.
6. 13" MacBook Pro.
7. iPod Touch.
8. USB Vodafone modem.
9. Cables&Headphones of unknown origin.
10. Flying Persian Rug.

And now, off to Bogrotavia!

Fish of the day

2011-04-06T01:04:00.000+03:00

The Ceratioidei.

Ceratiidae males are substantially smaller than the females. At a young age, one or more males attach themselves parasitically and permanently to a female, eventually merging circulatory systems. As this genetic Chimera matures, the males grow large testicles while the rest of their bodies atrophy. Ceratioidea are the only known creatures to naturally become Chimeras as part of their life cycle.

Male attaching itself to the love of its life.

Piatra-Neamt: trouble for gnomes

2011-03-30T11:24:00.000+03:00

The Blajini are little, silent and gentle creatures (the word "blajin" is an old Romanian word for a kind or good-hearted person) who live underground or in burrows. These are not good times for them around here, because the weather is so fickle.

Here is one of the paths that they used, see how the last storm has blocked it?

And here's one of their homes, or what's left of it anyway.

Finally, this is the picture I took of the unspectacular sunset of the day. I'm afraid the Blajini are gone from this town for a while; that's why the colors are so boring.

A Romanian's Day Out

2011-03-29T15:26:00.000+03:00

I drank the Fine Drinks

I drank the Import Wines

I drank the Keg Wines

I drank the Bottled Wines

And then I just walked out of the place.

Romania on cable

2011-03-28T00:46:00.000+03:00

The Wikileaks Cables have finally hit Romania. What a hilarious racket.

The Antena 3 TV team is trying to explain to us that the cables are a fluke, because the major figure behind their media trust, Dan Voiculescu, is depicted in the American cables as a major Securitate operative during the Communist Regime.

The Basescu Bikini Team

President Basescu appears rather relaxed. The cables mention his booze problems and his affairs with younger women, but President Basescu is not the kind of man (and president) to be embarrassed by such things. I imagine President Basescu would say: "It's better this way, better than to have women problems and an affair with booze, ha ha, ha ha, ha ha."

Romania In Translation #36

2011-03-27T21:44:00.000+03:00

OTV Headline for tonight:

The Romania's Got Talent finalist who wants to be killed.

Diana Wynne Jones 16 August 1934-26 March 2011

2011-03-26T13:41:00.000+02:00

I never got to read her books as a kid; I would have loved them. Whenever I need to remember the joy of childhood I read some pages from one of her books.

After we read Little Dot we nicknamed Mic, who's a gentile, bourgeois tomcat, to Mr. Williams.

Books arrived

2011-03-24T13:55:00.001+02:00

My Amazon order arrived surprisingly quick:

Last Wave Kurganization

2011-03-24T10:42:00.001+02:00

Apparently this ad was part of the 19th Century struggle for Women's Suffrage (in the USA):

Photo: BuzzFeed.

So, anyway, I think women should still be pretty worried about what happens with their rights, but that's just me. The rest of the world seems to think Sucker Punch (the sexploitation movie made by Zack Snyder, director of 300, Watchmen and The Owls of Ga'Hoole) is a Feminist Movie...

I got that last bit of information from the blog of American writer Genevieve Valentine.

Then, reading through the comments there, I got stuck with this question, why do women need to become violent and aggressive in order to express their freedom?

I am not a Feminist - I apologize in advance if I offend anyone with my ignorance - but why do women need to kill other people or destroy things to become "better" or to "re-affirm?" The women I have lived with, my mother, my life partner, my daughter, I saw them face and solve problems without ever resorting to violence or hurt. I admire these women, and I dislike violence. So I really don't like the thought that women NEED to kill or hurt things to become "powerful." I actually think that this is a masculine idea, that Power is only achieved with Violence.

I don't get it, if women become violent and abusive as males, how are we becoming better as humans?

Sometimes I think that this is the true last step of the Kurganization. From Wikipedia:

"Marija Gimbutas believed that the expansions of the Kurgan culture were a series of essentially hostile, military incursions where a new warrior culture imposed itself on the peaceful,matriarchal cultures of "Old Europe", replacing it with a patriarchal warrior society, a process visible in the appearance of fortified settlements and hillforts and the graves of warrior-chieftains"

And now the male-warriors have finally convinced women too that the thing to do is to kill, maim and destroy? I don't know, sometimes it just seems we're hopeless. Tell me I'm wrong, please.

Romania In Translation #35

2011-03-23T22:30:00.000+02:00

OTV Headline for tonight:

Here are the persons who attacked last night the convoy transporting the furniture of Pepe and Oana Zavoranu!

Book Note: Kar

2011-03-22T13:50:00.000+02:00

Kar by Orhan Pamuk (2002), translated by Luminita Munteanu (Curtea Veche, 2008)

In the city of Kars surrounded by Kar (snow) the poet Ka is caught in a coup, falls in love, and writes poems again after four years.

And just as in the above noted play of words, the protagonist is diminished by how he reacts to what happens to an absurd, lonely syllable, meaningless to its own culture. Even the poems are lost.

April Fool's Book Order

2011-03-16T22:39:00.000+02:00

Delivery estimate: 1 April 2011 - 5 April 2011
Dispatch estimate for these items: 17 Mar 2011

	1	"Missing Kissinger" Etgar Keret; Paperback; £7.84 Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
	1	"An Actor's Work on a Role" Konstantin Stanislavski; Hardcover; £19.61 Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
	1	"New Model Army" Adam Roberts; Paperback; £8.35 Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
	1	"A Challenge for the Actor" Uta Hagen; Hardcover; £15.25 Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
	1	"The Sorcerers's House" Gene Wolfe; Hardcover; £16.67 Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
	1	"Home Fires" Gene Wolfe; Hardcover; £13.63 Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
	1	"Stanislavski and the Actor: The Final Acting Lessons, 1935-38 (Performance Books)" Jean Benedetti; Paperback; £7.07 Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.

Naming&Shaming

2011-03-16T16:35:00.001+02:00

There's this sort of imbecile tradition in the Romanian press to periodically mock the naming habits of our gypsies.

You see, due to their superstitions and sympathetic magic, the Romanian Gypsies choose for their kids such names as Television, Mercedes, Boss, or Q-7 as the article I linked mentions, in the hope that their destiny will be bettered by the successful name.

Is this funny? I'm not sure. Is it discriminatory to mock this habit? It sure is.

But what really, I mean REALLY boggles my mind is this: the same Romanians who laugh of the Gypsy names baptize their kids with the names of dead saints, in the hope that their lives will be protected by these "patrons."

Is this funny? It sure is? Is it also hypocrite? Yes baby.

Japan

2011-03-15T09:15:00.000+02:00

Poster by James White, you can buy it at Signalnoise to donate money for Japan.

The best beginning

2011-03-14T13:19:00.000+02:00

You know the Timer, and how in all those Hollywood movies they stop it at 00:01? I always thought that the most interesting story would start after the Big Bang: let everything blow and then let's see what goes on. But in the movies they kept stopping it...

Because you want to know

2011-03-13T21:14:00.000+02:00

I managed to write a 7200 words story in less than 24 hours. It's not a masterpiece - huh, I don't even know why I bother to mention that information, does anybody really believe that I'd write a masterpiece, and in less than 24 hours?

Anyway, I'm terribly satisfied about it because usually I'm such an unproductive writer, I'm worse than a Communist Factory. This happened though because I wrote it for me, not for sending it out. Not exactly for me, Oana asked me to write her a story about a snake, but doing stuff for Oana is pretty much doing stuff for me, so there.

Here's what I put in this story: the House Știma and an evolutionary explanation on why all the știma have huge boobies, a pocket universe, the quest for the fern flower, and the birds' engagement. It doesn't really have a plot, but Oana didn't ask for one.

Piatra-Neamt: State of the Walk

2011-03-12T09:07:00.001+02:00

The Hotel Central is going through a refurbishing phase, where the old grey materials on the outside are replaced with modern grey materials. The part in the middle doesn't look like it would get modernized though - obviously they want to keep the flavor of the Old Days in that section, where you'll be able to rent rooms with no running water, no electricity and a Securitate operative hidden in the bathroom.

House Representative Norica Nicolau is obviously in another House these days.

The Museums are Under Repair. There is no one working.

The Theatre is Under Repair. Nobody working here either.

"HIRING: Construction Workers, Carpenters, Smiths, Masons, Painters, Day Workers."
Huh, maybe they should have looked for workers earlier...

Dan Diaconescu's Party of the People (he's the guy behind the ph.k.dickian TV station OTV); the Piatra-Neamt branch is weirdly stuck between two Public Notary offices.

Apartment with Dungeon for sale. Two rooms plus an underground chamber accessible from the bedroom. Have someone to torture or imprison?

Yesterday we actually celebrated another year together, love.

Today's Recommended Anonymous Artist

2011-03-11T19:16:00.000+02:00

Anonymous Artist:

Involuntary Collaborations: I buy other people's landscape paintings at yard sales and Goodwill and put monsters in them.

I campaign for a safer world for ducks

2011-03-11T13:59:00.000+02:00

We need to intensify the war on drugs, look at what's happening to Donald:

The cranes!

2011-03-10T18:40:00.000+02:00

I was checking little O's homework today.

They're at the Spring chapters of the schoolbook, it seems. One of the questions in her homework asked, "How do we welcome the coming of the cranes?"

My daughter's answer was "We welcome the coming of the cranes with happiness."

I knew what that was about, because when I was a kid I was taught pretty much the same thing, that somehow Spring was supposed to bring me joy and hopeful thoughts.

I just had to ask her. "Hmm, so were you happy last Spring when the cranes came?"

Little O frowned. "Did they even come last Spring?"

We talked a little more on the subject of what we really do about the coming of the cranes. Now she's at the birthday party of a girlfriend, and I just checked her homework again. The new answer is:

"We welcome the coming of the cranes with complete indifference."

But that's just us, you know, as the label of this posting says. You might run naked on the streets in celebration of the cranes coming. And it's worth noting that the dwarfs of Sweden welcomed the cranes with sharpened spears and attack goats, as depicted in this 1555 drawing by Olaus Magnus:

(That scene is soooo Bogrotavian!)

2011-03-08T17:47:00.001+02:00

Map of the Future Tech, by Michell Zappa:

Full PDF and Map Legend here: Michell Zappa.

We have some pretty good Talcum

2011-03-05T21:58:00.000+02:00

Oana found this Chinese Baby Talcum Powder in a box of old stuff. She told me she bought it in early-1990, when foreign merchandise in colorful packaging was starting to pop here and there on the still empty shop shelves:

Book Note: Poisson d'or

2011-03-05T17:56:00.002+02:00

Poisson d'or by J.M.G. Le Clezio (1997) translated by Claudiu Komartin (ART 2009)

The life of an immigrant girl.

I found myself ambivalent about the story and the protagonist's plight. It was of course tragic and unfair, but the heroine was too stupid for most of the story.

The ending is using the same device as Napoleon Dynamite (to be noted that the movie was made many years after this book appeared). Here it felt rather disappointing, but I had to appreciate the irony of having to do an extraordinary feat in order to become the legit member of a dumbed-down society.

Lyrics

2011-03-03T09:24:00.000+02:00

"Hey Jean
This is Henry McCLean
And I've finished my beautiful flying machine"

Today all I'm going to listen to is Pink Floyd - The Early Singles. Because they wrote amazing lyrics like the ones above.

My favorite song this morning:

What does a neglected imaginary friend do?

2011-03-02T00:20:00.000+02:00

The center also closes off the freeplay it opens up and makes possible O_- got me?

2011-03-01T18:12:00.000+02:00

What I'm reading today:

Jaques Derrida, and the things I-only-pretend-I-understand he wrote about Structure.

I'm working on an assignment now, a screenplay - I have not tried to write a screenplay since something like 5 or 6 years - and I find it fascinating that the first thing I do is to structure the whole thing, as I don't do when I'm writing prose. It's like I'm writing two stories in the same time, one for the actors, following the situation, another for the director. I use the structure for the latter conversation.

When I write this script, it seems to me that the structure is the easiest, and one of the most fun to use, tools that I have. I can't understand why I'm not thinking in the same way when I'm writing prose.

Also, Gary Cuba just let me know his story Another Day at the Collider has been published in New Myths. I've only read the beginning, which is the usual GC brand of humor:

"The users always thought it was a software glitch. We software types always thought it was a user glitch."

For some reason this is one of those days when I just know I'm not going to finish whatever I have to do. Which is a lot. And I'm not going to finish it.

This blog post? No structure at all. What's wrong with me???

Literary one-upmanship

2011-02-28T10:55:00.000+02:00

In 1945, in the middle of one of his breakdowns, William Faulkner told his 12 years old daughter Jill: Nobody remembers Shakespeare's children.

Enter David Markson, postmodern novelist, who comes across this information in Blotner's biography of Faulkner, and accurately notes next to the paragraph: What an SOB!

Then Markson goes on and remembers Shakespeare's kids in Vanishing Point and The Last Novel:

Vanishing Point:
“Shakespeare’s first child, his daughter Susanna, was born one day less than six months after his and Anne Hathaway’s marriage license was issued.
Shakespeare’s twins, Hamnet and Judith, were born less than two years later—a little less than three months before he turned twenty-one.”

The Last Novel:
“August 8, 1596, Hamnet Shakespeare died on.
July 11, 1649, Susanna Shakespeare Hall died on.
February 7, 1662, Judith Shakespeare Quinney died on.” (Pg. 180).

(via this tumblr)

Book Note: Slow River

2011-02-26T13:06:00.000+02:00

Slow River by Nicola Griffith (1995) translated by Roxana Brînceanu (Millennium Press 2005)

Near future eco-thriller, and that's about it.

There is a character in this story, a mother who abuses her daughters; I wanted so much to learn more about that, but the river didn't flow that way.

But if near future eco-thriller is what you want to read, this one's heartily recommended.

StuFF

2011-02-25T11:49:00.001+02:00

In Observator Cultural, Michael Haulica writes periodically charming articles about the Romanian F&SF community. His last one is titled "Short Prose:"

"The Romanian publishing market (the F&SF one at least) was always solid and determined. The writers, also. Which meant that the publishing houses always demanded novels, and the writers always produced what they knew best: short stories."

With that in mind I pre-ordered a copy of the Romanian short prose anthology Steampunk: The Second Revolution, coming out in March. This is the Table of Contents:

Foreword, by Ștefan Ghidoveanu
Miss Vu's Morning Walk, by Ioana Vișan
The Black Castle, by Costi Gurgu
From The Gypsies, by George Lazăr
The story of Calistrat Hadîmbu from Vizireni, cowardly killed by the uncle Raul Colentina in an inn on the outskirts of Bucharest, by Michael Haulica
Lead Souls, by Ștefana Cristina Czeller
The long way home from the sky, by Marian Truță
The Last Hourglass, by Oliviu Crâznic
The Alchemist, by Mircea Oprița
Prophecies About The Past, by Aron Biro
The Revolution Nostalgia, by Florin Pîtea.

10 authors, 8 male, 2 female, Not A Good Ratio.

To remain on the subject of Romanian FSF short prose, I recently managed to read the second issue of the Galileo magazine - which is labeled "Summer 2010" but arrived in my mailbox in January this year (or was it December? not sure it matters...).

Leaving aside the editorial, the non-fiction articles, and the translated stories (Michael Swanwick, Costi Gurgu, Nicola Griffith, Lucius Shepard), we have three original, new Romanian genre stories in this issue:

Cumania 2010 by Marian Truță, I Serve The Dog-God by Ștefana Cristina Czeller, and The Sphinx Huntress by Florin Pîtea.

I Serve The Dog-God happens in a post-apocalyptic future where the remains of humanity worship a dog creature that seems to be an avatar of the long lost knowledge of the past. The narrator receives the Call and journeys to the castle of the Dog-God, to serve It for the rest of his life. Despite the story's slow and info-dumpy start, there are some nicely written scenes between the narrator and the butcher where he is sent to work, and the Priest. These characters and their interactions are the core of the story, unfortunately the post-apocalyptic setting and the resolution gave the feeling of "I've read this somewhere else..."

The Sphinx Huntress is another post apocalyptic scenario. This time, after the inevitable wars and destruction there's an Ice Age too. And the surviving people are hunted by biomechanical creatures called Sphinxes. YA Romanian SF!

In Cumania 2010 the protagonist, Aleodor Comanescu, lives in a Romania where the 1989 revolution was defeated and Ceausescu is still the ruler of the country. Aleodor encounters a neighbor who is a writer and writes stories where Ceausescu was killed in 1989.

"I have to mention from the beginning that in 1989, in December, Ceausescu was assassinated by ...

Aleodor closed hurriedly the notebook again. If this was a joke, it was a very bad one. He wondered what was he supposed to do. He had to fake it, further, as if he hadn't read a word. But how could he hide the disquiet stirred inside him?"

I think the story is a nod to Dick's The Man in the High Castle, but I didn't see the point and it left me confused.

Also, sadly:

RIP Ion Hobana (1931 - 2011), Romanian SF writer, translator and promoter.

Book Note: Netherland

2011-02-21T11:26:00.000+02:00

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill (2008) translated by Carmen Botosaru (Leda 2010)

The novel struck so many chords in me it became a concert; I can still hear echoes of its harmonies in my mind.

"To leave is to take nothing less than a mortal action," discovers Hans van den Broek, the passive and nostalgic protagonist of Netherland. "Women care about the survival of the world, men care about its glory," observes Chuck Ramkissoon, the dreamer, the New American, who takes Hans under his wing in the wounded post 9-11 New York. Between these two aphorisms there's a wealth of a novel about manhood, love, commitment, and chaos, and despair. And cricket.

My favorite novel so far in 2011.

(and also, the mother of the angel in the Chelsea Hotel asks Hans if he ever visited Istanbul, which is a lot like New York, signaling the fascinating dialogue between the love story in Netherland and the one in My Name is Red, how could I NOT like this book???)

Cranky

2011-02-20T12:08:00.000+02:00

Snot. Why?

When I'm sick, people bring nice gifts, like oranges. My own brain forces me to produce bucketfuls of snot. Why? I already have a cold. I already feel bad. Why pour snot all over my face? What's wrong with giving me something nice, like food appetite?

I get snot.

We live with cats

2011-02-17T08:55:00.000+02:00

Mei is a special cat who doesn't seem to know she is a cat.

The first thing we noticed about her, when she was a little kitten, was that she had no agility.

Despite being an easily frightened kitty, Mei could not outrun anything. Not even our (then) 5 years old daughter. Whenever somebody approached her, Mei sort of made herself into a trembling ball of blue fur and purred as loud as she could while blinking her big eyes at the aggressor.
Then we discovered that Mei could not jump. What cat doesn't jump? Mei needs to climb, sometimes using all fours just like a sloth, sometimes hoisting her lower body part up like humans do.

Also, whenever something interesting happens, Mei sits up straight, looking like a blue and chubby mongoose.

She also has the habit of standing on her ass, like bears or humans, and of laying on her back, like in the picture below:

Mei is Oana's reading partner, and Jiji is my writing collaborator.

Book Note: Love

2011-02-16T11:56:00.000+02:00

Love by Toni Morrison (2003) translated by Mihnea Gafița (ART 2010)

A book about what women do after the man who messed them up dies. There are no actual feelings of love in the book, and its characters are desperately sampling all that passes for love but isn't: obsession, hate, guilt, revenge, sex, self-interest, need, addiction. It's a tough, cruel book, and it took me quite a while to finish it but I'm glad that I did.

I really need to up the number of women writers on my reading list. I might buy today some Desai and Sinisalo books, although I'm not sure the latter is translated in Romanian.

GG Egypt

2011-02-14T09:46:00.000+02:00

By the Grace of Dumb...

2011-02-09T09:56:00.001+02:00

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, here's a YouTube video showcasing the Romanian Spiritual Method...

I am aware that most of the humor is lost because the words are in Romanian, but I can translate to you the method:

"I cry, I let go.
I pray and I'm charging. With Power. And Light.
And in the morning, I'm a New Man."

Yes! It's that easy, for us, the Romanians, apparently the Real People of God. And I think it's rather cool, you know. I mean, when we meet next time, you won't be able to recognize me, like, with all the Light&Power, and also I'll be a New Man, called Dumitru, 62 this spring, who happens to be muslim.