Greetings, folks! Welcome back to The Book Report.

The winter holidays can be a major source of stress for people as they look for the perfect gifts to give their loved ones. Buying for book-lovers can be especially difficult. Many’s the time when I’ve been given the same book by different people due to its position on a best-seller list, and occasionally it’s a book I’ve already read, or already own, or have no interest in reading.

So what I thought I’d do is provide some simple ideas and suggestions to help you get that perfect gift for the special bookworms in your lives.

1. Mythoi — Birth Trade Paperback
It’s not that the good people at Semantink would fire me if I didn’t mention buying their book for the holidays (although they might). I’ve blogged before on what an interesting book it is, and it’s not a bad gift (or an expensive one) to give to folks who appreciate literary goodness.

2. E-readers
Granted, buying a nook or kindle or other e-reader for someone can be a pricey gift (though not if you divide it six ways…). On the other hand, kindle and nook apps for computers, iphones, ipads, etc. are free. If you know someone who has an e-reader, is saving up for one, or is getting one already, you can help build their digital library with gift cards. There are even electronic gift cards that you can “deliver” via email.

3. Reading paraphernalia
Just like with drugs, any good hobby has certain paraphernalia to add comfort, convenience, or cool to the experience. Chess and cribbage offer customized game pieces, for example. The trouble with books is they don’t handle the elements well, so maybe a great gift for your favorite book-lover is a book cover. You can buy basic covers at Office Depot and other stores, or go for something a little more high-end like what this website offers.
You could also buy your reader a reading pillow to increase their reading time comfort. Book lights and bookmarks can make inexpensive, but useful, stocking-stuffers (or you can buy one of these, to be the envy of other bookmarks everywhere).

4. Gift receipts
If you are going to buy a book (or book paraphernalia), make sure you ask for a gift receipt. Items bought from a website should offer instructions on how to make returns as well (such as bringing in the packing slip to a Barnes and Noble store with the item). Make sure you know, and the person who gets the gift knows, how to make a return with your gift. Don’t take it personally if you find out someone returned your gift. It could be because they already had it, or it didn’t fit their personal style, or any number of reasons that have nothing to do with you. You could also spend a little extra time (if you’re feeling particularly crafty) and include the gift receipt (or instructions) in a small card with a personal note assuring no hard feelings.

5. Don’t buy anything for yourself
I know, it happens. Your out shopping and then you see that the next Wheel of Time book has come out (it has, in case you missed it) without your realizing and so you pick it up, not knowing that someone else just bought it for you because they saw you didn’t have it on your bookshelf. It’s December, and gift-buying can be difficult. So if you absolutely can’t wait and must have that thing that someone else very possibly could be purchasing for you, put out a little announcement via facebook or twitter to save everybody a little embarrassment come unwrapping time.

That’s all for this week, folks. Good luck with the shopping!

Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

Howdy, folks! Welcome back to The Book Report, and happy December to all of you.

Before we go anywhere, I want to make sure you saw this:

The lovely folk at Semantink Publishing put this together with SanBox Inc., and they asked me if I’d write some music for it. It’s something I’m quite proud of, so I hope you enjoyed it.

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“Tom briefly explained how he wrote his books. He treats writing like a nine-to-five job, writing eight hours a day, Monday through Friday. No writing allowed on weekends. He gets up in the morning, makes himself breakfast, lights a cigar, and sits at his typewriter.
When he starts a novel, it works like this. First he writes a sentence. Then he rewrites it again and again, examining each word, making sure of its perfection, finely honing each phrase until it reverberates with the subtle texture of the infinite. Sometimes it takes hours. Sometimes an entire day is devoted to one sentence, which gets marked on and expanded upon in every possible direction until he is satisfied. Then, and only then, does he add a period.
Next, he rereads the first sentence and starts writing a second, rewriting it again and again until it shimmers. Then, and only then, does he add a period. While working on each sentence, he has no idea what the next sentence is going to be, much less the next chapter or the end of the book. All thoughts of where he is going or where he has been are banished. Each sentence is a Zen universe unto itself, and while working on it, nothing exists but the sentence. He keeps writing in such a manner until he eventually reaches a sentence which he works on like all the others. He adds a period and the book is done. No editing or revising in any way. When you read a Tom Robbins book, you are experiencing the words not only in the exact order that he wrote them but almost in the exact order that he thought them.” (From Michael Dare’s essay, “How to Write Like Tom Robbins”)

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To be fair, Tom Robbins is a bit of a hippy, though I mean that in the best possible sense. A lot of what reading Tom Robbins is like, is taking assumptions and peeling away the veneer of history or prejudice or pop culture to get at the truth underneath. I love reading Tom Robbins. One newspaper called him “a national treasure”, and this even though he’s been writing for forty years and only put out eight novels in that time. Though I guess perfection tends to be worth the wait.

Perfection? Really?

Yup. In re-reading his 1990 novel Skinny Legs and All I realized that I probably could not read a more perfect version of this story. It’s quite a tale, too. I really don’t want to give too much away, because I don’t want to spoil anything and I think you all should give it a read.
It’s wild, zany, and hilarious. The book is chock-full of thought provoking material, including bits on the purpose of art and artists, clarification on the Jezebel and Salome stories of the Bible, the point of religion, the point of politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict (considerably more poignant now), sex, matter, and energy. Three of the main characters are a dirty sock, a spoon, and a can of beans. The Australian band Wolfmother got their name from this book.

To be fair, the book’s plot is barely there, utilized almost solely to keep all the bizarre ideas somewhat related. Some more literally-minded people may not find Robbins’ style all too enjoyable, but if you can manage to drop preconceived notions and just go along for the ride a bit, you’ll find an immensely enjoyable book. There’s too many ways I can spoil some of the hilarious jokes in the book if I say too much more, so I’m just going to close with what’s printed on the back cover and hope you’re intrigued enough to give him a read.

“An Arab and a Jew open a restaurant together across the street from the United Nations…
It sounds like the beginning of an ethnic joke, but it’s the axis around which spins Tom Robbins’s gutsy, fun-loving, and alarmingly provocative new novel, in which a bean can philosophizes, a dessert spoon mystifies, a young waitress takes on the New York art world, and a rowdy redneck welder discovers the lost god of Palestine — while the illusions that obscure humanity’s view of the true universe fall away, one by one, like Salome’s veils.”

Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

Heya, folks. Welcome back to another Book Report.

Today I want to talk about something Semantink has been doing for quite some time now. Since around February, they’ve hosted a Comic Savvy on the third Sunday of each month. What’s a Comic Savvy? Well savvy can mean either practical understanding or experienced and well-informed. It’s a corruption of the Spanish word sabe which means “(you) know”. So a comic savvy might be a gathering of experienced and well-informed comic readers and collectors chatting and helping non-experienced and poorly informed comic readers gain a practical understanding. Savvy all around!

I admit my knowledge and experience in comic books is severely limited. I’m a fairly fast reader, and growing up, I got way more satisfaction sitting down and plowing through the 1,000+ pages of The Lord of the Rings than I did positively burning through the 20ish or so pages of a monthly mag. The stories were good (most of the time) and the art was really good (most of the time), but I was used to blasting through hundreds of epic pages in a matter of days. An epic comic only took me a couple minutes, and then I’d have to wait a whole month and hope the next issue would be just as epic? Thank god for the graphic novel format!

Why am I telling you this? I only bring it up so you can realize that I’m not particularly savvy in comic books, but I enjoy the hell out of the Comic Savvy Meetups! There are gentlemen there who’ve been collecting comics for decades, know the ins and outs of not just stories, but author and artist runs as well. To be honest, that level of devotion, and, well, nerdom is hugely refreshing (I use nerdom here with the highest complimentary tone).
I wonder how much people realize the extent of comic’s influence over us on a daily basis. Yeah, there’s the superhero movies, but even more than that. Comics get made into movies or expanded into books, but it happens the other way just as often. Popular novels, Shakespeare, even the Bible have all gotten comic book treatment. The original Aliens and Predator movies spawned some sci-fi comics, and led to a brilliant comic mash-up in the late 80s of Alien versus Predator. The brilliant comic run led to an alien skull being placed on the predator ship in the mediocre Predator 2 movie, several popular video games, and ultimately the two disappointingly craptastic Alien vs. Predator films. Movies inspire comics inspire movies…not bad, eh? Comics pervade every aspect of pop culture, whether it’s in the graphic novel companions to some albums (like Coheed & Cambria) or the only way we’ll ever see new episodes of Firefly.

So if you’re thinking that these Comic Savvies are only for the most hardcore of comic readers and collectors, you’re wrong. There have been discussions where I’ve felt out of my depth, sure, but that’s not any different than any other time I’m with a group. Other times I feel perfectly able to add my input to a conversation.
Another worry I know a few people have had is that Semantink is somehow using these meetups to push their product and steer conversation into directions that feature themselves. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Semantink occasionally mention themselves, but only the way any representative of a production company might mention themselves in the course of a conversation: to provide an example. They would certainly encourage anyone to check out their properties, but let me be clear: This isn’t like an Avon meeting or Tupperware party. The point is not bring Semantink business, it’s to tighten a sense of community around readers, viewers, and listeners.
What these Savvies ultimately provide is a chance to grab some coffee and chat, more or less intelligently, about pop culture and the way the graphic novel format influences (and is influenced by) it. And trust me, these meetings are absolutely a blast!

The Sunday Comic Savvy Meetups happen at Milano Coffee Company on the third Sunday of every month. Semantink also added a Weekday Savvy at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf on the first Thursday of every month. Perhaps the only downside is these Savvies happen down in San Diego, but it should be seen as great advertising that I’m willing to drive down from Long Beach to attend these, if only irregularly.
But if you live in San Diego, or don’t mind the drive down to spend a day there, you should definitely try to work at least one of these into your schedule.

Happy Thanksgiving, folks! Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

G’day folks! Welcome back to another Book Report. I’m gonna try and make this short today. I’m fighting a nasty cold and pushing words through my mucous-filled brain to reach my fingers and snap out typing is taking serious effort right now. Apologies.

For a while it bugged me that Christmas deco started going up right after Halloween. And then I figured that Halloween was just the kick-off for a three-month season of sweets and sweetmeats, candy and candied yams, chocolate and champagne (ran out of steam on that last one, sorry). This season of eating is one of the reasons so many people make a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight. So what I thought I’d do is recommend a couple of cookbooks to help make the most of your eating time.

Betty Crocker Cookbook

One of the things about this cookbook that I love is that it contains over 1,000 recipes, most of them fairly simple. It also contains helpful advice on making the recipes healthier. The instructions are clear and easy to follow. But the thing I love most about this cookbook is that it provides the basic building blocks from which you can create truly great meals. It’s incredibly easy to take a simple recipe, experiment the hell out of it, and come up with results that please the taste buds.

Simple Suppers

Weeknight cooking is the worst. You’ve been working all day, and the last thing you want to do is stand in a kitchen at the end of the day and prepare a meal. Especially when there’s fast food just down the street. The problem is that you really want to eat healthier, and/or it’s cheaper to eat home-cooked meals.
What this cookbook does is offer plenty of recipes that you can almost literally throw together with very little effort involved. The simple recipes are delicious on their own, but a little experimentation can provide truly wonderful results.

Cook With Jamie

Jamie Oliver gained a lot of recognition this past year with his television show Food Revolution, where he tried to inspire the town rated unhealthiest to change the way they eat and think about food. In 2002 he started the Fifteen Foundation, a charitable organization that takes 15 troubled youths every year and helps them gain confidence and self-reliance by teaching them to become chefs.
This cookbook is a wonderful tool to help you create absolutely fantastic tasting (and looking) dinners without breaking your budget or driving you mad in the kitchen trying to pull off something you lack the cooking skill to do.

So if you’re looking to do some cooking this holiday season then here’s three great suggestions for ya.

And just in case you missed it, Mythoi #3 came out yesterday. And by came out I mean released and not that it admitted to being gay. And by released I mean available to purchase and not that it got out of jail. Unless you consider the mind of James Ninness a prison. Which some do.

Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

Greetings, dear reader! Welcome back to The Book Report.

When Semantink Publishing first popped its metaphorical head out into the world, it brought with it their flagship production: Mythoi, a sixty issue comic appearing monthly for the next five years. They got out their first issue, and then realized they needed a completely different marketing strategy to build momentum (and readers). So Semantink put the 60-issue arc of Mythoi on hold and worked with author James Ninness on releasing five “Birth” issues of the main Mythoi characters for free, available only on the internet.
Issue 2 has since been released, and Semantink also released a graphic novel collection of the Birth issues along with some extra goodies, including a sixth Birth.

What I thought I’d do today is take a look at the six Birth issues and not talk about them. Instead I want to talk about the different mythos that inspired each character. Hopefully, for those unfamiliar with one (or all) of these mythoi (plural of mythos, you know), this Book Report will help provide some depth without giving away story secrets that Mr. Ninness would want kept a secret. Let’s dig in!

Wiglaf

Wiglaf in the Mythoi universe comes from two different legends. The first is from the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf. Wiglaf is an actual character in Beowulf, and Ninness does not deviate from the story when he portrays Wiglaf as the only soldier to stay by Beowulf’s side when he fights the dragon. He does, however, deviate from the tale’s resolution. In the original poem, following the death of the dragon, a dying Beowulf bestows his crown and kingdom to Wiglaf. Ninness takes the epic tale and makes it, if you can believe it, even more epic: He ties Wiglaf’s tale to the curse of Cain.

Cain was the brother of Abel and son of Adam and Eve, as the Bible relates the story. In the book of Genesis, we read that God preferred Abel’s offering of his best lamb over Cain’s offering of his best fruits. Jealous of God’s preferential treatment, Cain slew Abel. As punishment, God cursed Cain to wander the earth. Cain protested his punishment, claiming that as a wandering stranger cursed by God anyone who found him would kill him. So God set a mark on Cain, proclaiming that any man who killed Cain would receive vengeance seven times greater.
What Ninness does is make Wiglaf the son of Abel. He kills Cain to avenge his father’s murder, and receives the wanderer’s curse in Cain’s place.
So by the time of Beowulf, Wiglaf has already been alive for centuries, perhaps even millenia.

Vito

Fans of classical literature should recognize the beginnings of Vito’s story. His story begins during the last moments of Bram Stoker’s classic Dracula. There was a Dracula sequel released in 2009 by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt, hardly worth mentioning. I only do so here to point out Vito (and Mythoi) has nothing whatsoever to do with the sequel.
Of course, Mythoi has little to do with the last chapter of Dracula as well. In Stoker’s novel, Jonathan and Mina return to London safely and have four children, a rather different end than what Ninness gives them. On the other hand, the slight twist is certainly no different than how Ninness changed the end of Beowulf. And who knows? The way stories become legends and legends become myths hardly guarantee the original story remains the same.
Vito’s tale ends a bit strangely. Dracula passing on his heritage to Vito was considered a gift. Vito doing the same is a curse. I’m intrigued to see how that develops.

Yuki

Yuki’s tale is a great martial arts battle. One woman against an entire temple (and their yeti). The temple is part of Tibetan Buddhist tradition, in a mythical kingdom called Shambhala. The common translation from Sanskrit is that Shambhala is a place of peace, tranquility, and happiness. The big tweak Ninness gives this story is that Shambhala is nothing of the sort. Yuki’s desire to bring Shambhala and its master down is her revenge for the horrors visited upon her by the monks.
According to Buddhist mythos, Shambhala was ruled over by benevolent Kalki kings, upholding a form of Tantra called Kalachakra. The Kalachakra has a prophecy that the “25th King” will come in a time of despair, war, and greed and lead an army against “Dark Forces”. Some scholars calculated the Kalachakra to predict this will come to pass in the year 2424 AD.
In Mythoi, Shambhala is ruled by Master Sho, given great power by the four elemental dragons. Sho does not appear in Buddhist legend (he wouldn’t, since I believe the name is Japanese), but there is a Confucian legend concerning a Master Sho of Kokei.

A monk came to Master Sho and asked him, “When things come from the four directions and eight dimensions, what then?“
Master Sho replied, “Hit the middle.“
The monk immediately bowed.

Asian cultures typically viewed dragons as being attached to the different elements, as well as time and even the universe. But dragon legends exist in nearly every other major “old world” (not the Americas) culture as well. The actual word “dragon” comes from the Greek word draco (actually a Latin translation). The word typically meant any great serpent, and not (necessarily) the type of dragons you picture when you hear the word.

Taros

Taros is yet another revenge story (seeing a theme here?), based on Greek mythology. Taros is the son of Ares and the human woman Mesia in Mythoi, though no such characters exist in the mythology. Ares sired a mortal son named Tereus, brutal and barbaric, and one of his immortal sons through Aphrodite was Anteros, god of unreciprocated love. But that’s the closest we can find to Taros, which is fine. Ninness has established already that he plans on tweaking the various mythoi, and for good reasons.
Besides, I like the idea of a son of Ares who doesn’t like fighting.
The story takes place in 201 B.C.E. which is the year the second Punic War ended with the defeat of Hannibal and the fall of Carthage. Given that the story is set during the ascension of the Roman Republic it’s interesting that Ninness chooses Ares, rather than Mars, as the god of war. The age of Greece is ending by then, and with it the pantheon on Olympus. At least until the Romans remake it in their own image.

What these first five “Births” offer are revenge stories set during the end of an age. Wiglaf’s tale is of God’s vengeance and the death of a king. Vito’s tale is of his own vengeance following the death of an immortal. Yuki’s tale is of her own vengeance against a mythical kingdom. Taros’ tale if of his vengeance against the gods as their power declines. What then does Touch’s tale offer?

Touch

Touch’s tale also begins at the end of an era, but rather than vengeance, Touch offers hope. The other tales are based on mythos of the past, Touch’s mythos is science, and the hope of the future. Science and the future offer uncountable possiblilities, something that all our mythoi of the past dream for. Touch represents a tangible (touchable) symbol that we aren’t stuck in our current disaster, but that life can be improved.
Not a bad way to end the Birth series, eh?

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The graphic novel does offer a sixth birth story, an interesting, Ninness-typical twist on the Little Red Riding Hood legend.

So go give all these a read, preferably by picking up a copy of the graphic novel. And then prepare for the imminent arrival of Mythoi Issue 3!

Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

Hey hey, it’s the 50th Book Report!

It’s also the day after elections. I hope everyone got their vote on yesterday.

What I thought I’d do today, in honor of the occasion, is recommend a few bits of writing that might give people (specifically Americans) a better idea of what America is all about.

First and foremost, go pick up a copy of Common Sense, The Rights of Man, The Age of Reason, and any other writings by Thomas Paine. His writings helped galvanize early Americans in their war for independence, he was instrumental in bringing much needed French funds to the Continental Army, and rightly deserves the title The Father of the American Revolution. Except after America won its freedom, Paine’s call for universal suffrage and the abolishment of slavery alienated him from many Americans, including most of the founding fathers. When Thomas Paine died in 1809, only six people came to his funeral.

The next book I think you should look at is title Radicals in Robes with the subset Why Right Wing Courts are Wrong for America,written by Cass R. Sunstein and published in 2005. What this book does is examine what the Supreme Court actually does and the manner in which they do it. He ultimately states an opinion which you may or may not disagree with, but beside that, his look at the Supreme Court is fascinating.
His writing is mainly in response to the accusations of “activist judges” on the parts of liberals and conservatives alike. He explains that there are three distinct schools of thought on interpreting the Constitution and how it affects the Court’s ruling.
The first school is called fundamentalism, traditionally employed by conservatives. What fundamentalists do is examine and interpret the Constitution based upon how the authors meant it at the time of writing. Fundamentalists generally argue that the true meaning of the Constitution has eroded since the early 1900s and needs to be restored.
The second school, coming from the opposite end of the spectrum and usually embraced by liberals, is called perfectionism. What a perfectionist judge does is examine the Constitution in the broadest terms possible, so that laws written centuries ago can be made better, and more applicable to current civilization.
Sunstein then offers a third school of thought, called minimalism. Rather than the broad interpretations of the perfectionist or the outdated interpretations of the fundamentalist, the minimalist examines the Constitution on a case by case basis, making interpretations in minute amounts, allowing the law to evolve and change gradually over time, rather than the sudden and broad (and often divisive) rulings such as Brown vs. The Board of Education and Roe vs. Wade. While most people (and most of them liberal at that) would argue that the rulings on those two cases were good, Sunstein points out that the rulings were also earthquakes that forced a gradual progression towards the same result into a more divisive either/or situation for many people.
After describing the three methods of interpretation, Sunstein applies the methods (and the possible outcome) to many important contemporary social issues, including abortion, privacy rights, same-sex marriage, and others. Extremely critical of fundamentalism, Sunstein also dismisses perfectionism in favor of minimalism. Whether you agree or disagree, however, but then you have a much clearer picture of how the least popular branch of government operates, and why their job is so important.

The last book I think you should take a look at is America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction, published in 2004. A Teacher’s Edition was published in 2006 with some updates and fact-checking by history professor Stanley K. Shultz, who liberally applies red ink corrections to much of the parody and satire.
The book was written by Jon Stewart and his crew of The Daily Show writers and staff. The book is a parody of high school U.S. History textbooks, utilizing in a similar manner worksheets and end-of-chapter questions. Blisteringly satirical, Publisher’s Weekly named it “Book of the Year”.

The reason I include this book in my list is, well, I think it’s funny. As important as I think it is that we have a proper grasp of American History and a basic knowledge of how all our branches of government work, it is equally important to be able to laugh about it. Politics in America has a lot of nastiness in it, and I think part of that comes from taking itself too seriously. It’s important to take the time to giggle, I think.

Anyway, there’s some reading material for ya, apropos for the season.

Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

Howdy, kids! Welcome back to The Book Report.

In 1971, the first digital library began with the digitization of The Declaration of Independence. The library was founded by Michael Hart, called Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg’s goal at that time was to make the 10,000 most consulted books available to the public at little or no charge.
Fast forward to 2010, Amazon.com reports that ebook sales outnumber hardcover book sales for the first time. Is that good? Is digital reading the future? How did we get from one document in 1971 to literally millions of digital books 40 years later? That is what I’d like to examine in today’s Book Report.

Project Gutenberg got its name from Johannes Gutenberg, a 15th Century German Printer who propelled the movable type printing press revolution through Europe. The printing press revolution made text accessible to everyone, and Project Gutenberg strives to do the same thing cheaply and digitally. The eBook process went slowly until 1989, when computer scanning and optical character recognition software improved dramatically. Suddenly, Project Gutenberg wasn’t the only player in the game anymore.

In 1985, Robert Stein founded the Voyager Company, which helped create The Criterion Collection, a collection of movies considered classic and/or important. In 1991, the Voyager Company released the first three eBooks in their Expanded Books collection. Designed to utilize the computer to make reading more immursive, these books on CD-Rom feature sound-clips, pop-up pictures, drop-down menus and spaces in the margins to write notes. Those first books they released were The Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, The Complete Annotated Alice by Lewis Carroll, and Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. Over 60 novels were converted to Expanded Books.

Two other events in the early 1990s would shape the development of the eBook. The first was the rapid increase in internet connection speed. At the start of the 90s, the fastest modem was the 4800 baud modem (4800 bytes per second or 4.8Kbps). By 1996, the 56.6Kbps modem was released and more and more of America were using the internet to do more and more things. Information was out there and people wanted to see it.
The other event occurred in 1992, when Book Stacks Unlimited began as a dial-up bulletin board selling new books. It moved to the internet as Books.com. Two years later Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com and a online marketplace for book shoppers hit the mainstream. Back then, personal computers had hard drives rarely larger than 1 GB, so a market for digital text was small, especially since you could now buy the book online and have it shipped to you. Browsing bookstore shelves trying to find a book or an author became a relative thing of the past.

By 1998, you could also buy books at borders.com and barnesandnoble.com. So Kim Blagg received to first ISBN issued to an ebook and began to market multimedia-enhanced books online. That same year, the first ebook readers went on sale to the general public. Over the next two years, more ebook readers hit the market and more ebook websites, like eReader.com and eReads.com, go online.
In 2000, Stephen King released the short story Ride the Bullet as an ebook, available only online (in 2002 he included the story in his collection Everything’s Eventual). The following year Todoebooks.com started selling Spanish language ebooks.

In 2006, Sony released the Sony Reader with e-ink technology. The following year, Amazon.com released the Kindle. The year after that, BooksOnBoard started selling ebooks for iPhones. Last year Amazon.com released the Kindle 2 and Barnes and Noble came out with their own ereader, the Nook. By now, Project Gutenberg has more than 33,000 items in its collection, including novels, short stories, poetry, drama, cookbooks, periodicals, reference works, and musical notation.

Currently Sony, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble dominate the market with their eReaders (and eReader applications for computers, iPhones, and iPads). All three offer wireless and 3G connectivity, though only the Nook and Kindle offer web-browsing. Just yesterday, however, Barnes and Noble unveiled their new eReader: the Nook Color. Offering nearly all the same great features of the Nook (battery life took a hit), the Nook Color brings something that neither Sony nor Amazon offer: 16 Million colors in a 1024x600 resolution. This advantage brings e-magazines and, even better, e-comics to the Nook.

What does all this mean for the written word? Have we seen the beginning of the end for printed books? Ebooks have their pros and cons just like regular books. I love books. The weight, the smell of the page, the idea of collection value. On the other hand books are fragile and they take up a lot of space. Digital media is more durable, takes up much less room, is cheaper to produce, and can come with extra resources right at your fingertips. On the other hand, for collectors ebooks are worthless, digital media does degrade (albeit incredibly slowly) over time, and if memory loss due to power surge or electromagnetic pulse occurs the words are gone for good. The possibilities for print preservation are slightly better, in my opinion.
It’s a debate that won’t go away anytime soon. In the meantime, I appreciate the fact that there are new, interesting ways to create new readers.

Until next time,
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_-Akatzen-_

Heya, folks! Welcome back to The Book Report.

Lots o’ things happening with Semantink since last we met. Conventions, new artists, new titles, contests, and all sorts of goodies have been hitting the boards. Check this out for most of the updates…

Last week I continued my examination of Arthurian literature with a look at Merlin, his history, his literature, and how he fit into the Arthurian legend. I tied it together by looking at Stephen Lawhead’s second novel in The Pendragon Trilogy, Merlin. I want to conclude by looking at the final book in the trilogy, Arthur, published in 1989. Like the other two novels in the trilogy, Arthur is rooted heavily in the original Celtic material that inspired Geoffrey of Monmouth, who then inspired much of the rest of Arthurian literature we are more familiar with.

Throughout the series, Lawhead used different story-telling styles to relate each book. Taliesin uses a third-person narrative, alternating viewpoints between the Welsh and the Atlanteans. Merlin was written in the first person, and how he told the story changed based on his mental stability at the time (ie. Part 2 was during his time of madness in Caledon forest).
Arthur also uses a first-person narrative style, but this time, the narrators are people around Arthur, speaking their own story of the young king.

Part One, which relates to how Arthur finds his birthright and gathers the reluctant allegiance of the Celtic kings, is narrated by Pelleas.

Pelleas first appears in the early 13th Century Post-Vulgate Cycle, a collection of French Arthurian poems concerned more with the Knights of the Round Table and the Holy Grail. In the poem, Pelleas is the son of a poor knight who falls in love with a high-born maid named Arcade. He wins a golden circlet for her in a tournament, but she spurns him and his professions of love. Arcade locks herself in her castle to avoid him, and sends out her knights daily to humiliate him and drive him away. Sir Gawain witnesses this, and vows to help Pelleas by going to Arcade wearing Pelleas’ armor as proof he is dead, but once in her presence, Gawain promises to woo on behalf of Pelleas. Once Gawain sees the lady, however, he falls in love with her himself, and in his passion forgets his promise. Pelleas finds them in bed together, and lays his bare sword between them and returns home in grief. When they awake and find the sword with them in bed, Gawain shamefully remembers his promise and convinces Arcade to marry Pelleas.
Thomas Malory reworked the story in Le Morte d’Arthur, adding a revenge plot with the enchantress Nimue. Tennyson reworked the story further in Idylls of the King, losing the revenge plot in favor of highlighting the chivalric code.

Lawhead reworked the character completely for his book, since a medieval romance hardly fits in the time period. In Lawhead’s trilogy, we first meet Pelleas in Merlin, where he is the youngest son of a poor king who finds more worth being Merlin’s steward than in being last in line for a throne he will likely never see. In Arthur, it is through Pelleas’ eyes that we watch Arthur struggle to claim his birthright and win the allegiance of the Celtic lords.

Part Two is told through the eyes of Bedwyr, which is the Welsh form of the much more recognized knight Sir Bedivere.

Bedwyr appears with Arthur in many of the old Welsh poems and histories, including the Mabinogian, The Life of St. Cadog, and The Black Book of Camarthen. Some scholars believe he is as historically real as Arthur. In most Arthurian tales he is charged by a dying Arthur to cast Excalibur back to the Lady in the Lake, and in Monty Python and the Holy Grail he claims the earth is banana-shaped and proves that if a woman weighs the same as a duck she must be a witch.

In Lawhead’s Arthur, Bedwyr speaks of Arthur’s time as Dux Bellorum, or War Leader of Britain. The Celtic kings recognize Arthur’s birthright but are reluctant to crown him High King, so they give him an army and charge him to drive the barbarian Picts, Scots, and Saxons from the land (hoping he will manage to get himself killed in the process). Bedwyr speaks of his cunning in battle and his inspiration in leading, and the men who fight and bleed and die for him become cymbrogi: companions of the heart. Bedwyr’s tale is the bloody middle section of the book, and many recognizable names from Arthurian tales make an appearance.

Part Three of Arthur is told by Aneirin.

Aneirin was a late 6th Century poet and bard, whose works contain the earliest historical references to Arthur. Works attributed to the poet appear in the 13th Century manuscript Llyfr Aneirin (Book of Aneirin), and his best known work is Y Gododdin, an elegy of fallen soldiers during the Battle of Catraeth.

In Arthur, Lawhead has Aneirin as a lad becoming apprentice to Merlin following Arthur’s victories as Dux Bellorum and his ascension to High King. Here we find the medieval ideals of Camelot and The Kingdom of Summer taking shape, and the establishment of the Round Table. The ideal is short-lived, however, with the betrayal of Medraut and the death of Arthur.
At the end, however, Lawhead does something interesting. He has Aneirin mark a gravestone to mention Arthur as “The Once and Future King.” And then Aneirin changes his name to Gildas.

Gildas was a 6th Century cleric whose work De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, about post-Roman Britain, is the only near-contemporary historical source of that period. Gildas was a contemporary of Arthur though his writings never mention him, but one story tells of Gildas intervening in a battle for Arthur.
In the late-18th Century, there were attempts to link Aneirin with Gildas, but the theories were discredited. So it was kind of fun to see Lawhead toss the idea back into the pool to sort of tie all the ends together (I know, I’m mixing metaphors. Sue me).

Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at the Arthurian legend and one of my favorite tellings of it. I urge you to give Lawhead’s Pendragon Cycle a read if tales of Arthur hold any interest in your imagination.

Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

Hey kids! Welcome back to The Book Report.

Last week I took a look at Arthurian literature, and at the end focused a bit on Taliesin, book one of The Pendragon Trilogy by Stephen Lawhead. This week I want to continue our examination with a look at one of the key figures of any Arthurian tale: Merlin.

Early Welsh poems depict Merlin (known in Welsh as Myrddin) as a madman living in Caledonian Forest. He made a number of prophecies, including the manner of his own death. Geoffrey of Monmouth collected these prophecies and created his own work Prophetiae Merlini, which he later integrated into his more famous Historia Regum Britanniae. The Prophetiae were taken as seriously as the writings of Nostradamus until the mid-15th Century. Geoffrey connected his Merlin to the stories of Arthur only peripherally, however.
Monmouth takes the story of Vortigern’s Tower and makes the boy Merlin instead of Ambrosius Aurelius as depicted in the Historia Brittonum. In the legend, Vortigern wants to build a tower at a certain spot in Wales, but the tower always collapses just before completion. The king’s wisemen tell Vortigern that only the blood of a fatherless boy, sprinkled on the ground where the tower is to be built, will enable the tower to stand. They find such a boy (Ambrosius in Historia Brittonum), who explains the reason the tower cannot stand is because of two dragons, one red and one white, who live in a lake beneath the tower grounds. Their fighting is what prevents the tower’s completion. The boy explains that once the white dragon has been driven from the lake, the tower will be able to stand. The combination of Mryddin Wyllt the mad forest lord and Ambrosius Aurelius the prophet created the now recognizable magician Merlin Ambrosius (Welsh: Mryddin Emrys).
The story of the dragons is a simple prophecy where the white dragon represents the Saxons and the red represents the Britons. A British (Welsh) kingdom can never stand while the Saxons inhabit their land. It is believed this story is the reason why the Welsh flag bears a red dragon on its field. The reason this story is tied to Arthur’s story is that Arthur was the king who eventually drove the Saxons from Briton.

The other story Geoffrey of Monmouth provides to connect Merlin to Arthurian legend is the story of Arthur’s conception. Uther Pendragon, war leader of Briton, falls in love with Igerna, the wife of Gorlois. Battle between Uther and Gorlois breaks out, and Merlin disguises Uther so that he may sneak into Tintagel and lay with Igerna. That very same night, Gorlois is defeated, but Igerna has already conceived. In later Arthurian literature, Merlin takes the bastard Arthur under his care to hide his true lineage. Uther died by poison, and an illegitimate heir would not live long in the fight over Uther’s succession.

The relationship of the young king and his wizard tutor has lasted through the ages. Mark Twain made Merlin a charlatan and villain in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. T.H. White presented Merlin as a man who lives backwards in time, with first farwells and final greetings, in The Once and Future King and the related The Book of Merlyn. C.S. Lewis brought Merlin back to help a new Pendragon in the final book of his Space Trilogy That Hideous Strength.

Stephen Lawhead’s Merlin in The Pendragon Trilogy attempts to meld all the Merlin legends into a more cohesive story.

Being the son of Taliesin, a druid-bard, and Charis, an Atlantean princess, Merlin has inherited a unique legacy. He is heir to a kingdom that is trying to merge a druidic past to a Christian future as the Church pulls itself out of the ashes of the fallen Roman Empire and begins to spread across Europe. The book is divided into three sections, the first being his time as a prince and druid, the second being his time in the forest as a madman, and the final section is his time as prophet.
It’s an interesting read of an often secondary mysterious character in Arthurian legend, showing the effort made to finally achieve the Summer Kingdom (Vortigern’s Tower) in the ascension of Arthur.

That’s all for now, folks! See you next week when I conclude the look at Arthurian legend.

Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

Howdy, folks. Welcome back to The Book Report.

One of my favorite stories as a child was the legend of King Arthur. The story of the Sword in the Stone, with a young, awkward, and dispossessed Arthur suddenly discovering he was meant for something great. It’s a story that resonates well with children.

Probably the most popular version of the Arthurian legend comes from Le Morte d’Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory. It was one of the first books ever printed, in 1485, which may have something to do with its popularity. The book is a compilation/interpretation of many of the French and English stories and poems about the King, his knights, the Round Table, and The Holy Grail.
The tales Malory pulled from to write his version are hardly flattering, however. Of the eight stories in Malory’s book, only three feature Arthur as the central character: Book I where he is crowned King, Book II where he is crowned Emperor, and Book VIII where he dies. The rest feature him as either idyllic or a cuckold.
Inspired by Malory’s book were T.H. White and Alfred Tennyson, who each wrote their own famous versions of the legend. White wrote The Once and Future King in 1958 (with part 1 being the inspiration for the 1963 Disney film, and also served as the inspiration for Lerner and Loewe’s 1960 musical Camelot) and Tennyson wrote Idylls of the King, a twelve cycle narrative poem written between 1856 and 1885.

While a medieval Arthur, full of romantic chivalry, may be the most immediately recognizable, his story originates far earlier in Britain’s history. The main Arthurian entries appear in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain and in the early Welsh history Annales Cambriae, both 12th Century documents. Scholars generally agree that Monmouth embellished or invented many of the details in his Historia Regum Britanniae, but one thing that his History and the Welsh Annals agree on is that King Arthur led the Britons against the Anglo-Saxon invaders at the Battle of Mount Baddon between 490 and 517 C.E. British poets Taliesin and Aneirin, both close contemporaries of the famed Battle also mention Arthur in their poems.

Recent literature and films have placed Arthur in this time period, including the Clive Owen and Keira Knightley film King Arthur (2004) and The Last Legion (2007 film and 2003 novel)

One of my favorite Arthurian stories also sets the legend during this time. It is a collection of novels titled The Pendragon Trilogy, written by Stephen Lawhead (he later released other novels, and the Trilogy became a Cycle, but the later books are mostly supplemental material to the main trilogy). The first is titled Taliesin, published in 1987.

Taliesin was a Welsh poet and court bard during the sixth century. According to legend he was found as a babe in a salmon trap by Elffin ap (son of) Gwyddno. Elffin adopted him and gave him his name, which means “radiant brow”. He was raised in the court, and at age 13 visited King Maelgwn Gwynedd, Elffin’s uncle, and correctly prophesied the manner of Maelgwn’s death.

Lawhead writes the story of Taliesin by following legend and the 16th Century Tale of Taliesin, and he interweaves the story with chapters about a young princess named Charis living on the island of Atlantis during the final years before its destruction. It may seem strange to begin a story about Arthur in this way, but there can’t be an Arthur story without his Merlin, and so what Taliesin becomes, ultimately, is Merlin’s origin story. It’s a good read, and provides an interesting (if fictional) look at a post-Roman and pre-Christian Britain.
I’ll stop things here, having hopefully whetted your appetite a bit, and next week I’ll continue my look at The Pendragon Trilogy with the second book, Merlin.

Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_