Ape::Tracks

A narrowboat called Lyra

I've just posted a comment on an earlier post mentioning that I'd recently seen a narrowboat named after Lyra, a character from His Dark Materials. Out of curiosity I searched Google to see if anyone else had mentioned it and found that the crew have a weblog! Here's the entry for the day I saw the boat. Narrowboat Lyra is travelling around Britain's canals from August 2006 to August 2007. The weblog is a fascinating diary of their journey and has plenty of photos.

I see canal boats going past everyday and grew up near a canal but apart from a couple of brief trips on canal boats at The Black Country Museum I've never really travelled by narrowboat. I think a narrowboat holiday might become an ambition.

Manchester has a lot of dodgy looking locks that would seem to make canal travel rather slow and tedious but we still gets lots of cheerfully crewed boats chugging through. Maybe I'm just too lazy.

Link: Narrowboat Lyra

Lyra, Airships and Bears, Oh My!

'His Dark Materials: Northern Lights' trailer! Woo! (Well, it's 'The Golden Compass' now, following the book's American title, and not quite the same as the book, but definitely Woo all the same.)

It looks good, but I'm still concerned: I've been wondering how they'll convincingly show a talking polar bear (lets face it, they don't have the jaw, teeth lips, etc for it it look "normal") and I'm still not convinced from the trailer. Where are all the demon animals? I thought the Texan balloonist was younger... But I'm still eagerly looking forward to this. At the very least it should encourage more people to enjoy the books. Pullman himself has said "All the important scenes are there and will have their full value." Fingers crossed.

(Via His Dark Materials from Ben Hammersley) [I too will be very surprised if they get away with showing one particular small scene in the third book. Although I'm hoping it might make it to a DVD extended edition :-)]

Free Potter!

Not Harry. Beatrix. Project Gutenberg has a nice selection of B.P stories, with pictures.

Beatrix Potter would get my vote as Best Childrens Author Ever. Her characters are fluffy, but her world isn't: there's adventure, but also danger. I think this is better for children than cosy 'WInnie The Pooh' type stories, although I remember I found some Beatrix Potter a little scary...

Reading the line "But Nutkin was in his waistcoat pocket" in a whisper can make still me shiver.

Link: Browse By Author: P - Project Gutenberg

Grimm Up North

One aim for this year was to start learning Norwegian or Swedish. I've ended up with Chinese instead, for now, but I really should find more Scandinavian folklore and fiction. Here's a great little story translated and posted to a weblog.

Link: The Changeling

(Please forgive the bad inexcusable fairy-tale pun. And I know the Grimm Brothers were German.)

Snow Crash

Why oh why do people like Snow Crash so much? I've just seen Snow Crash described as a book that "redefines the art form", alongside The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Have these people ever read real, decent SF? It's like saying that BoyZone are like the Beatles for goodness sake. Or saying that Panda Shandy is Real Ale.

    This is a long overdue incoherent review. OK, maybe it's just a rant. Snow Crash doesn't deserve the time a proper review would require.

The H.P. Lovecraft Library

The copyright status of Lovecraft's work is vague. It looks as if the copyright has lapsed, so The H.P. Lovecraft Library has put a large amount of his work online as both HTML and PDF documents. This site is an excellent resource.

    With the recent frenzy of new "Intellectual Property" laws in the USA and Europe, will this be possible for today's writers, or will their work just fade away as their publishers lose interest but hold onto the copyright?

    Link: <a href="http://www.ech-pi-el.com/lovecraft/">The H.P. Lovecraft Library</a>

Cthuugle

An amusing Lovecraftian search engine in the style of Google.

    Link: <a href="http://www.cthuugle.com/">Cthuugle</a>