My first car was a four-door Chevrolet Chevette, the four-door model. It was a sparkly red color. I was grateful to have it, and excited to have a car to drive, but honestly there wasn’t much about the car to be excited about. It was ugly; it was underpowered; it had an AM radio. We called it the Grunt. And anyway, I wanted a blue car. I’m hazy on the details, but either it didn’t come in blue or there weren’t any available. My parents picked the Chevette because it was the kind of car the driving school used.

My second car was a snazzy Mazda 626 sports coupe. It had power windows and a nice stereo pre-installed; you controlled the balance and fade using this silly little joystick on the center console. Plus, it had oscillating vents–they went back and forth all by themselves if the ventilation fan was running. It had an all-digital dashboard (this was the in-thing in 1985), and I called it the Starship. It was a lot of fun to drive, and I spent a lot of time looking for fun places to drive it.

It was also a sparkly red, though somewhat darker than the Grunt was. I’d wanted a blue one, but I also wanted a manual transmission. Plus, I was buying it in the middle of the summer of 1985; the 1986s were coming soon, and there wasn’t a large selection to choose from. If I recall correctly, the only blue they had was a very, very pale silvery blue, which wasn’t what I was looking for anyway.

Well, somewhere around 1991 or 1992 the poor Starship was showing signs of age, and Jane and I decided it was time to replace it. We’d bought our first home a couple of years before, and money was tight, so I ended up with a Ford Escort. It was nicer than the Grunt but not nearly so nice as the Starship in its prime, but it was affordable–partially because it was, once again, mid-summer, and they were trying to clear out the old models to make room for the new ones. I don’t know why, but I’ve always bought cars in mid-summer. So the selection was, naturally, limited, and the only Escort that met our other requirements was, naturally, a sparkly red color. I didn’t call the Escort anything but “my car”; it was just transportation.

Our eldest son was born early in 1997. Later that year my mother got too sick to drive any more, and my dad offered to sell us her car, a 1995 Buick Le Sabre with low mileage and all the options. It was easily twice as big as my Escort, and the suspension was so soft it was rather like driving a sofa, which is what Jane called it–the Sofa. I enjoyed the Buick; it had a thermostatically controlled climate system, a huge trunk, big comfortable seats, and oodles of power. It wasn’t the sort of car I’d have picked out for myself, but the price was right, and the Escort was beginning to give us trouble.

The Sofa wasn’t sparkly red, for a wonder; it was sort of a sparkly golden beige. But then, it wasn’t new, either, so it doesn’t really count.

Anyway, it started needing repairs a little too often over the last six months or so, and we decided it was time to replace it. So last weekend, Jane and I went out car shopping. And after looking at all sorts of cars and taking a test drive, we decided on the PT Cruiser. I wanted a blue one, of course, and they had one–a beautiful sparkly midnight blue. It was gorgeous. Just walking up to it made me happy. It was just what I wanted.

And then I opened the driver’s door, and sat down.

And hated the interior. Just absolutely hated it.

One of the neat things about the PT Cruiser’s styling is the dashboard, which has metal inserts which match the color of the car. It’s a classy look, and makes the instruments really stand out. But in the blue Cruiser the upholstery was a light gray, and except for the nifty dark-blue inserts the dash was light gray above and off-white beneath. It was a color scheme calculated to get scuffed and dirty in about two minutes, and so far from standing out, the nifty dark-blue metal inserts might as well have not been there–what drew the eye was the off-white glove box.

The Cruiser we test drove, on the other hand, had nearly identical features. And the interior was much nicer–those dash inserts positively glowed. And it was, of course, a bright sparkly red–“Inferno Red” is the name in the brochure.

I thought it about for while, and decided that I was going to be spending more time sitting in the car than standing around admiring it…and it was such a nice bright sparkly red.

There was a certain inevitability about it, I suppose.

I’ve now started the fifth book in David Drake’s Lord of the Isles series; once I finish it, I’ll be writing a review of the whole series to date. I’d probably have finished it by now, except that Jane and I spent yesterday afternoon car-shopping; and then we spent a couple of hours today car-buying. So things have been a little busy around the Foothills.

Anyway, here’s more or less what my new ride looks like:

Some time in the last couple of weeks, an anonymous benefactor dropped ten bucks in our tipjar. Thank you very much, whoever you are!

This open thread at Making Light has a bunch of science fiction and fantasy book recommendations by a bunch of people. (Thanks to Mark D. for pointing this one out.)

And this post at A Small Victory has a bunch of fantasy book recommendations by whole ‘nother bunch of people. (Via Twisted Spinster)

As always with this sort of thing, your mileage may vary; but there are some good suggestions in there.

Yes, it has been quiet around here. It’s not that I’m not reading; it’s just that I’ve been re-reading David Drake’s Lord of the Isles series in preparation for reading the fifth installment, which is just out in paperback. And as each of the volumes is over 600 pages long, it’s been taking me a while.

Ah, well. Normal reviews will resume shortly.

Q: What did the Scottish bear say when he discovered his porridge pot empty and a little girl named Goldilocks asleep in his bed?

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This is a book intended for sale in museum gift shops, for people to buy
and give to small children under the illusion that they are bringing
culture to said children, when all they are really doing is parting with
their hard-earned money to no good purpose. This stinker of a book was
published by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, by people
who really should have known better. I hasten to add that none of the
fault lies with the illustrator, Lisa Canney Chesaux; the illustrations
are fine, and suit the story.

The story, now, the story might be salvageable; I’m not sure. But the
telling of the story is surely awful.

The story is straightforward. Philippe is a frog with unusually large
legs. And as he lives in France, he is in constant danger of having
his legs eaten. Indeed, two frogs of his acquaintance, shortly after
having mocked his unusually large legs, are captured and whisked off to
the kitchen right before his eyes. But lucky Philippe! He wanders into
Monet’s garden, where Monet is pleased to see him; he adds a dash of
green. Philippe is safe forever.

Not a bad plot, I suppose; it has definite humorous possibilities; but as
it’s executed there’s no rising action, no tension, no sense
that Philippe is ever actually in danger–despite having his two
acquaintances captured before his eyes. But it’s the words that are the
real problem.

The book is written in rhyming prose. I assume it was intended to be in
some kind of verse, but the rhythm changes from line to line so that the
rhymes don’t come when you’d expect them to. There’s no discernable
rhyme scheme. And the rhymes are often horribly strained. “Fried”
doesn’t rhyme with “good-bye”, nor “escape” with “fate”, nor “Philippe”
with “bleat”, nor a dozen other hopeful combinations.

In short, reading this book aloud is almost physically painful. Since it
seems unlikely that everyone connected with the project has a tin ear, I
can only conclude that none of them cared much about the words, or about
reading the book to real, live children.

Note to museum-goers–read the book, before you buy it for your
niece, nephew, or grand-child. Thank you.

The August issue of
Ex Libris Reviews is now on-line.

Alas, Craig Clarke was unable to contribute this month, which means that if you’re a regular reader of this blog there’s nothing in the issue you haven’t seen.

We’ve had this posted on our refrigerator for years; I just found the original on the web (click on “Bill of Rights” in the left-hand column).

My favorites:

Because it is the most character-building, two-letter word in the English language, children have the right to hear their parents say “No” at least three times a day.

Children have a right to scream all they want over the decisions their parents make, albeit their parents have the right to confine said screaming to certain areas of their homes.

Because it is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, children have the right to hear their parents say “Because I said so” on a regular and frequent basis.

Children have the right to learn early in their lives that obedience to legitimate authority is not optional, that there are consequences for disobedience, and that said consequences are memorable and, therefore, persuasive.

Following upon Craig’s statement that our choice of Sonny and Cher’s Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves (among other songs) from ITMS had raised his opinion of our musical taste, I decided to shoot the horse altogether. So I’m going to take a tour through our iTunes music library and drop a few words about some of the things I find (the track counts are approximate):
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