This is the first sequel to Bridge of Birds, Hughart’s
delightful tale of Number Ten Ox the peasant and Master Li Kao, the sage with a
slight flaw in his character. This book takes place a few years after
its predecessor; one gathers that Ox has been living with Li Kao in
Peking and that they’ve had a number of adventures in the meantime.

In this book, Master Li and Number Ten Ox are summoned to a distant
valley which centuries ago was the home of the fiendish and sadistic Laughing
Prince. A monk has been found dead, apparently of fright, strange
sights have been seen, and the local abbot is afraid that the Laughing
Prince and his followers have returned.

Like its predecessor, The Story of the Stone is a skillful
mixture of Chinese life, legend, and myth, well-leavened with humor.
I’ve never thought it quite as good as its predecessor, and on this
reading I set out to find out why. It turns out that there are three
related reasons.

The first reason is a difference in structure. Bridge of
Birds is essentially episodic in nature, though the episodes are joined
by an over-arching narrative. Moreover, all of the episodes share a single
narrative and comic structure. The Story of the Stone is much
less episodic, and the storyline is rather more complex.

The difference in structure has two effects, my second and third
reasons. The first effect is that while there’s much to laugh at in
The Story of the Stone, the comedy is incidental rather than
essential–it could easily have been left out without changing the story
significantly. The second effect is that the book is much less
fun to read aloud–which is how I first tried to read it.
(Bridge of Birds reads aloud marvelously.)

And that’s what left the bad taste in my mouth–I was expecting a
delightful, joyous read-aloud, and I didn’t get one.

This time around I resolved to just let the book do its thing, without
comparing it to its predecessor, and I’ve decided that it’s really much
better than I’d given it credit for–that it’s a good, well-crafted tale.
It still isn’t the book Bridge of Birds is; but then, few are.

Michael Blowhard raised one of his usual ruckeses recently by posing the following hypothetical: one guy goes to a Black Sabbath concert; another goes to hear Maurizio Pollini play Chopin (which, I might add, Pollini has been known to do quite well–I’ve got the CDs to prove it). Afterwards, both say they had a “great” time. Michael then asks a number of questions for discussion; all focus on whether the two guys can reasonably mean the same thing by “great”.

Michael architects his posts to generate open-ended discussion; consequently, I was amused to see Aaron Haspel bat out a set of clear, concise, definitive answers.

Go read Michael’s hypothetical, and then read Aaron’s answers.

Something over a year ago, I started a complete purge of my library. Some books got put into boxes for a while, while others I decided to get rid of completely. But as things go when you’ve got three kids in the house, I didn’t finish the job. I finally got around to working on it this afternoon. I suspect that there’s more purging to come, but at least I’ve gotten through all of the mass market paperbacks, along with a few others.

The following books I’m getting rid of only because for one reason or another I have duplicate copies.

• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling
• The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers
• The Best of Cordwainer Smith, by Cordwainer Smith
• The Instrumentality of Mankind, by Cordwainer Smith
• Norstrilia, by Cordwainer Smith
• Quest of the Three Worlds, by Cordwainer Smith
• The Oathbound Wizard, by Christopher Stasheff

These books, on the other hand, simply didn’t measure up.

The Children’s Hour, by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

Somehow this didn’t ring any bells for Jane or I, and it should have.

An Introduction to General Systems Thinking, by Gerald M. Weinberg

This is a classic, and it should have been right up my alley. I enjoyed reading it, but couldn’t see any way to make use of it.

Time Machines, by Paul J. Nahin

This is a survey of time travel concepts, gimmicks, paradoxes, and so forth in the fields of physics, metaphysics, and science fiction, and it isn’t as interesting as it sounds.

The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler

Breathing Lessons, by Anne Tyler

Once was enough.

Death at Gallows Green, by Robin Paige

Once was more than enough.

The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale, by Jill McGown

Oddly, I can’t remember anything about this book except that the cover design reminded (erroneously, as it turned out) of Sharyn McCrumb.

Trouble and Her Friends, by Melissa Scott

I generally like Melissa Scott’s books, but this one left me so cold I couldn’t finish it.

Maigret Has Scruples, by Georges Simenon

Yes, Maigret is classic; but that isn’t everything. It was OK, but it was insufficiently OK to prompt to buy any more of this series.

The Last Templar, by Michael Jecks

The Boy-Bishop’s Glovemaker, by Michael Jecks

Historical mysteries, set in the Middle Ages. I read one of these, and thought it interesting enough to try another…but not interesting enough to try a third.

Chung Kuo, by David Wingrove

The Broken Wheel, by David Wingrove

The same applies to these. It’s a grand saga about a future Earth ruled by China in which the entire planet has been encased in a metal shell and few ever see the planet’s surface. Uh-huh. Asimov got away with it, but Trantor had a galaxy to feed it. Chung Kuo has only itself.

A Grave Talent, by Laurie R. King

To Play the Fool, by Laurie R. King

With Child, by Laurie R. King

These are from King’s “Kate Martinelli” series, which I never cordially liked. I’m keeping the Mary Russell series, though.

The Samurai’s Wife, by Laura Joh Rowland

Write 500 times on the chalkboard: “I won’t attribute late-20th-century attitudes to 17th-century women.”

The Incomplete Nifft, by Michael Shea

The A’rak, by Michael Shea

I bought these thinking that they were by someone else. I read them anyway, but there’s no reason I have to keep them.

The Ringworld Throne, by Larry Niven

I’ve heard this called “The Ringworld Thrown Across The Room”. ’nuff said.

What’s Wrong With Dorfman?, by John Blumenthal

Not a bad book, but not my kind of thing.

A Comedy of Heirs, by Rett MacPherson

Plenty of heirs, not enough comedy.

The Walls of Jericho, by Jon Land

I’m not sure where this one came from, but I know where it’s going.

Native Tongue, by Suzette Haden Elgin

I read this once. Elgin’s an engaging storyteller, but I find this book to be ideologically silly.

The Gate To Women’s Country, by Sherri S. Tepper

Grass, by Sherri S. Tepper

I’ve rather gone off Sheri Tepper, especially since she decided to write books of Cultural Significance. Of the ones I’ve read, these are the two worst offenders.

Household Gods, by Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove

Oh, yes. I found the main character to be so uncongenial I couldn’t get past the opening scene.

The Soprano Sorceress, by L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Generally I like Modesitt’s stuff–but he seems to have thrown this one together to pay the bills. It’s the first in a series, and though I’ve occasionally inquired as to whether it got any better later on, nobody has ever written to tell me so.

The Spirit Rover has been making head-lines recently; an interesting site I found today points out that Mars is ahead of Earth 20 points to 16.

That’s a relatively forgiving score, by the way. The author gives Earth a point just as long as the spacecraft manages to send back some amount of science data–even if it crashes immediately afterwards. If he granted Earth a point only for missions that were indisputably successful, the score would be much worse.

It began to seem like I’d been reading this book forever.

Don’t get me wrong; I like Harry Potter. It’s fun stuff. But when David
insisted that I read him the second Harry Potter book as his bedtime story I was
reluctant. I wasn’t in the mood for it, and anyway I’d read it to
myself late last spring in preparation for the publication of
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was simply too
soon. On top of that, Dave already knew the basic story very well, from
watching the movie.

When you’ve got an adult who’s reluctant and a kid who already knows
what’s going to happen, there’s no real tension, and thus no incentive to
read a book quickly. And so I read it to him a few pages a night, taking
three or four days per chapter instead of one. And let me tell you, read
that slowly this book is a real dog.

Reading a book aloud word by word casts a bright light upon it, and all of
its flaws and imperfections spring out. It’s a dangerous thing to do. I
had an entire series of books by a guy named Craig Shaw Gardener that
I summarily disposed of after a failed attempt to read the first one
aloud to Jane. So long as I could read them at speed I was able to
ignore the lack of substance, but let the harsh light of slow and
careful reading be once cast upon them and my enjoyment ceased.

This book, fortunately, is not that bad. The first Harry Potter
read aloud adequately (though not superlatively), and I’ve no doubt this
one would have read aloud adequately as well under better circumstances.
I do confess, by the end of the book I’d started editing Rowling’s prose,
omitting needless adjectives and adverbs here and there.

I haven’t quite decided what to make of this book. For a story so
deceptively simple, the more I think about it, the more complex it becomes.

On the one hand you can read it as a very simple children’s fairy tale with
giants and good guys and pirates and bad guys and, of course, The Girl Who
Need Rescuing. But Goldman then goes and sticks all those personal comments
in about himself and the original manuscript and his first experience of the
story and things just get more and more murky. And interesting.

I have to read it again when I have time to think about it more as I’m
reading and not just to get the plot down. In the meantime, if anyone cares
to enlighten me on what to look for, I would be appreciative.

Now, I read Soul Music so I could go on and read this one.

As you’ll recall, Susan Sto Helit is Death’s granddaughter. She’s also
the Duchess of Sto Helit, but as she has philosophical problems with
being a non-working drone she’s currently supporting herself at the only
job deemed appropriate for young unmarried gently-born ladies–that is,
she’s a governess. And she has a problem. Her predecessor was a
believer in the “bogeyman” school of discipline, i.e., “If you don’t stay
in bed, the bogeyman will do thus and such!” Reality is thin on the
Discworld, and the result is that after dark the nursery is regularly
infested with one kind of bogeyman or another.

But Susan copes admirably and dispassionately; as a believer in the “iron
rod” school of discipline she simply applies an iron rod–specifically,
the fireplace poker–to all and sundry bogeymen….and then lets them go,
to spread the word that her nursery is To Be Avoided.

Meanwhile, for reasons I refuse to explain, Death is standing in for the
Hogfather this year. The Hogfather? You know–the Hogfather. Jolly old
fellow in a red suit, says “Ho, Ho, Ho,” rides in a sleigh pulled by four
giant pigs, and fills stalkings with sausages and blood pudding and toys
every Hogswatchnight. Him. For good and sufficient reasons, Death is
filling in for him this year. Consequently he’s having to shirk his
usual duties, and so Susan gets pulled in to take care of them–and Susan
Is Not Amused.

This is a book that answers a great many interesting questions, including
one great and abiding mystery: just what does the Tooth Fairy do with
all those teeth?

I’ve just released a new stable version of Notebook, V2.0.3. This one has lots of new stuff over the last stable version, V1.1, so go and check it out. It’s at
the Notebook Home Page.

I picked this book up for two reasons. One is that having read a great deal
of the literature from the Victorian period in British history, I have never
read anything about the actual monarch who lent her name to it. The other is
that I spent an entire summer reading the diaries of Virginia Woolf once and
Lytton Strachey figures prominently in the Bloomsbury group she was part of.
His writing piqued my curiosity.

This is a nice little précis of the life of Victoria. It dwells on the
personal side of her life and touches on the political less than I could
have wished but all in all I found it enlightening. He also brings to the
front the importance of Albert in British foreign policy and suggests that
had he not died just on the eve of the American Civil War, the British
policy towards the war may have been significantly different. His emphasis
on the personal loneliness of Albert, an intellectual man married to a
non-intellectual woman who adores him was also new to me. I had never given much
thought to Albert as more than the man Victoria mourned for over half her
life.

The book read well also. I was surprised at that since my take on the whole
Bloomsbury group is that they were well above the general level of rest of
us and wrote for themselves and Art as an abstract rather than for general
consumption. To find a little gem like this was a treat. Now I have to go
find a biography of Strachey to find out more about him than Virginia
Woolf’s sometimes catty observations in her diary.

So suppose you’d really like to do some stop motion animation, a la Wallis and Grommit. You’ve got the clay; you’ve got the camera; you’ve even got the necessary modelling skills. But how do you keep Wallis from falling over while he’s stand off-balance on one leg, arms waving madly? Simple! Just give some money to these guys!