Daniel > Recent Status Updates

One of the firmest tenets--so Moreland always said--in the later teachings of Dr Trelawney was that coincidence was no more than 'magic in action'.

Quiggin had judged his wife's first book, I Stopped at a Chemist (a tolerable film as Sally Goes Shopping), too short commercially. In consequence of this advice, Ada had written two long novels about domestic life, which threatened literary doldrums. She had extracted herself with Bedsores and The Bitch Pack Meets on Wednesday, since these never looked back as a successful writer.

'One rather odd thing about Glober, he insisted on taking a cutting from my bush--said he always did that after having anyone for the first time. He produced a pair of nail-scissors from a small red leather case. He told me he carried them round with him in case the need arose.'
'We all of us have our whims.'

'Let me tell you about Russell Gwinnett.'
'Please do.'
'He is a small fragment detached from the comparatively extensive and cavernous grottoes of gothic America. He is part of Old America - the oldest - yet has become in some respects the New America. I hardly know how to put it.'
'Halfway between Henry Adams and Charles Addams?'

'The Camel's not an exact description of Trappy's own life. He is always complaining people take it as that. You must have heard him. There are incidents, but the novel's not a blow-by-blow account of his early career.'
'I've heard X say that readers can never believe that a novelist invents anything.'

Trapnel, by some mysterious agency, always knew about all books before they were published. It was as if the information came to him instinctively.

London, 1947:
'In the new year, without further compromise, Dickensian weather set in. Snow fell, east winds blew, pipes froze, the water main (located next door in a house bombed out and long deserted) passed beyond insulation or control. The public supply of electricity shut down. Baths became a fabled luxury of the past.'

On the way to Brussels we passed a small cart pulled by a muscular-looking dog.

'Once you would have seen that in my country,' said Hlava. 'Now our standards have risen. Dogs no longer work.'

'That one seems positively to like it.'

This particular dog was making a great parade of how well he was accomplishing his task.

'Dogs are so ambitious,' agreed Hlava.

Albert, dreadfully ashamed at being caught in this act, in case I might suppose him habitually to lend a hand about the house, began to explain at once that he was occupied in that fashion only because, on this particular evening, his wife was in bed with influenza. He did not hide that he considered her succumbing in this way to be an act of disloyalty.

He spoke slowly, as if, after much thought, he had chosen me from an immense number of other nephews to show her at least one good example of what he was forced to endure in the way of relatives.

I was born to sing the joy and pride of life, the pleasure of living, the delight in everything beautiful in this most beautiful world, and they took me and tortured me till I learned pity and sorrow. Now I cannot sing the joy, heartily, because I know the suffering, and I was never may to sing of suffering.

It was unusual for him to express a wish to see anyone in the afternoon, which he was accustomed to spend in a state of comatose disapproval of modern life.

"“How many people can pick up a book and find an instruction manual for their life?” he said. “I hated reading a book telling me who I was. I thought I was different, but this was saying I was the same as other people. My wife and I were a typical Asperger’s couple, and we had an Asperger’s son.""

From an address given by Clarke on 11 Dec 1982:
'So if Space Power X wanted to bankrupt Space Power Y, it should try to persuade Y that it's building a system of orbiting fortresses--in the hope that its adversary would do just that, and build a Maginot Line in space that could be destroyed for not even one thousandth of its cost.'

In March 1983 the US announced the 'Strategic Defense Initiative'.

Bertie on an Oxford acquaintance:
'Except for borrowing an occasional cup of sugar and hulloing when we met on the stairs we had never really been close, he being a prominent figure at the Union, where I was told he made fiery far-to-the-left speeches, while I was ore the sort that is content to just exist beautifully.'

Two types of electrically charged particles in the same place that don’t interact with each other is really not so mysterious. It’s a bit like ordinary matter interacts via Facebook whereas the charged matter of the partially interacting dark matter model interacts on Google+.

The great thing in life, Jeeves, if we wish to be happy and prosperous, is to miss as many political debates as possible.

"Jeeves!" I ejaculated. I'm pretty sure that's the word. Anyway, I'll risk it.

It was plain that joy had made him the friend of all the world, even to the extent of allowing him to look at Bertram without a shudder. He was more like something out of Dickens than anything human.

'It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve standard timeparts!'

Because Alan Dean Foster (the ghostwriter of this book) knew what a parsec was.

'Mos Eisley spaceport--the ideal place for us to lose ourselves while we seek passage offplanet. Not a more wretched collection of villainy and disreputable types exists anywhere on Tatooine.'

Star Wars is sometimes derided for the quality of its dialogue, but the book--presumably based on an earlier draft of the script--makes you realise how good it is.

'Everyone feels trapped; it's our way of rationalising our leaden lot in the face of our golden potential.'

'That reminds me,' said Jean. 'I must renew your subscription to the Reader's Digest.'

Philip Hensher's introduction: 'If there is a paying British outlet for the classical short story of 7,000 words or so, I have not been able to discover it.'
It's called Interzone. Reportedly it doesn't pay much, but it pays. Considering the proportion of fantasy stories in this collection, it's curious that the introductory essay barely touches on genre magazines, especially those that are still publishing.