(If this isn’t my best review, please bear over with me; it’s been over two months since I read this book.)
2001 (1970, 1962, 1970).
165 pages.
“Induction” (2 pages)
“The Snow Women” (74 pages)
“The Unholy Grail” (27 pages)
“Ill Met in Lankhmar” (62 pages)
Swords and Deviltry is the first collection of short stories in the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks series’ [...]
Posts filed in Annoyance
Lots of things annoy me: Children, old people, liberals, conservatives, socialists, religious people, atheists, fruit, meat, the weather, various authors, chocolate, edible fluids (er…), certain forms of music, other forms of music, commercials, some movies, money, cars, busses, bicycles, forums, newspapers, my bed, crappy chairs — in short, what Tor Ã…ge Bringsværd referred to as “powder? powder!”
The posts tagged “Annoyance” contain rants about stuff that annoys me, or just brief mentions of such stuff.
Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber
I don’t want Bendis to ever go away!
So, I’ve been reading Ultimate Spider-Man lately (bye-bye, decent exam-period meals), and at first I thought it would be boring to read a superhero comic with only one superhero. I imagined it would be far less interesting than the more group-oriented superhero comics I’ve read before, like Astonishing and Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates, as [...]
A Plague! A Plague on Our Houses!
In my Last.fm shoutbox, I was recently asked by one of my readers to post more frequently in my blog, and seeing as your whim is my law, I bring you this: an essay of sorts about the last topic you’d expected me to write about!
One of the things you might not know [...]
The definition of preaching to the choir
You need to have flashplayer enabled to view this YouTube video
Seriously, I don’t know why these people bother. I mean, I agree with much of what the guy said, but jeez, does he honestly believe he is going to win many religious people over by antagonising them? Is this rational behaviour?
And what’s up with the islamophobia of these prominent atheists?
(On a concluding note, I’d like [...]
The Sword and the Sorcerer
The Sword and the Sorcerer is one of the many fantasy movies produced in the early 1980s, most of which have in common that they are so full of cheese and plot-holes you might think they’re Swiss.
In this particular case, the plot revolves around the kingdom of Eh Dan (Edain, anyone? Or Eng Land?), peaceably [...]
Superhero Movie
Rather out of the blue, I ended up seeing Superhero Movie with a friend last night. And man, am I sorry. But I’ll get back to that. First, a plot synopsis.
Rick Riker is Peter Parker, only more (exaggeratedly) so and with more unmotivated and unfun slapstick accidents happening to him. He is in love with [...]
Another one of GRRM’s ASOIAF fantasy references?
So far, I’ve noticed references to at least two other writers of Epic Fantasy in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. The first was quite simply the use of the name Vance on one of Westeros’ noble families, and the second (which I admittedly didn’t discover myself, I’m ashamed to say) is [...]
Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
1982.
346 pages, Corgi/Random House paperback.
Several thousands of years ago the seven Gods created the world, and chose a people to care especially for. All of them did this, except Aldur, who became the God of magicians. He also created a powerful Orb which the evil God Torak coveted, and later stole. The sorcerer Belgarath and [...]
The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe
2004.
920 pages, Gollancz trade paperback.
An American kid is out walking in the forest surrounding his and his brother’s cabin when he spots a castle in the sky, and follows it. During his pursuit he looses track of where he is, and when night falls he decides to sleep out in the forest. When he wakes [...]
Curses! Or constructing next term’s schedule
I checked my course registration page at NTNU (ooh!) about an hour ago, and much to my delight I discovered that I’ve been registered for not two but three courses this spring, and that these three combined fill my required term quota of 30 study points.
English Linguistics gives me 7,5 points if I pass it; [...]
I fucking hate the Frankfurt School
“The aim of jazz is the mechanical reproduction of a regressive moment, a castration symbolism. ‘Give up your masculinity, let yourself be castrated,’ the eunuchlike sound of the jazz band both mocks and proclaims, ‘and you will be rewarded, accepted into a fraternity which shares the mystery of impotence with you, a mystery revealed at [...]
Help! A “challenge”
So. I had an exam in English Language Proficiency just over two weeks ago, where one of the tasks were “language correction: identify, correct and briefly explain the grammar ortography mistakes in the following text”. It was supposed to be 13 mistakes here, but I only found eleven. Can you help me locate the last [...]
I’m concerned for my university
I had my fifth and final exam for the term today, and unfortunately, I thought it was just like the four previous ones.
You see, based on the curriculi and the lectures in the courses I’ve been taking this fall, I’ve been expecting to be satisfied with a straight Cs. Global English had a lot of [...]
“Global English” is rubbish
“Given the stress that is laid on spelling by prescriptivists, and the existence of so many dictionaries which provide standard spellings for English words, it is perhaps surprising that there should be any variation in spelling within standard varieties. But there is. Some of this variation is variation between varieties. More often, though, there us [...]
Concerning music and laziness…
I used to like Minor Majority. I considered them to be one of my favourite Norwegian bands of all time, and there were few things in the world that could soothe me and calm my nerves more effectively than the first couple of chords of “Think I’m Up For You And I”. And the album [...]
The Dragon Waiting, by John M. Ford
First published in 1983,
this edition (365 pages, Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks) in 2002.
Winner of the World Fantasy Award in 1984.
In Wales, the boy Hywel rescues a wizard, and travels to the City — Byzantium — with him to become his apprentice.
In Byzantine Burgundy, an old imperial family arrives as governors, and their eldest son — Dimitrius [...]
Dogma
Watched Kevin Smith’s Dogma again, for the thrid time or so, last weekend. I was hardly as enthusiastic as I was the first time I watched it, but that was three years ago, so I take this simply as a sign that I have matured somewhat. And also of me having watched it before, of [...]
Concerning postage…
I never got the first issue of Buffy s8 from my Outland subscription, so I had to register at Things From Another World’s web store, and get it from there.
The comic itself cost me $2.39. I paid $0.25 to have it bagged and boarded. And finally there was the tiny shipping cost of $8.21.
Almost made [...]
X-Men: The Last Stand
I feel like beating myself around the head with a heavy stick. Over a month ago, I watched X-Men: The Last Stand, and I have neither reviewed it here, nor entered into my movie log. Action must be taken; amends must be made!
Knowing my very exclusive readership, I’ll skip my usual half-arsed attempt at a [...]
Concerning Documentaries
I just watched an Australian documentary about Mullah Krekar (whose real name is Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad), one of the founders of the militant, Kurdish, Islamist organization Ansar al Islam, and an asylum seeker in Norway. The guy whom the Americans tried to use to link Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden a couple of years [...]
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