Bob Delyn a'r Ebillion

Another of my Welsh favorites, Bob Delyn a'r Ebillion.  The setting is Portmeirion, a town on the coast of Wales that is famous for its baroque-folly architecture (The Prisoner was filmed there).  "Y Swn" is "the sound".

Gwerinos

We've had Italians and Israelis on this blog.  For this weekend's music, I wanted to invite the Welsh.  Here are the Gwerinos (the "Folkies"), with their homage to a Beddgelert supermarket, Warws.  It's one of my favorites.

What Is Steampunk? (Check Out This Mac)

Wow.

Witchy Mencken

The Swords of Wisdom are rather like the Knights Templar, except that where the latter pinion their founding aspirations to the architectural handiwork of an old Hebrew philanderer, the former dream of a mysterious snake in the woods.  Still, it’s good to know that in these days of long rifles and sharpened teeth, someone’s running around saving fair damsels and slaying dragons (or would slay dragons, I am assured, if we had any left).  I for one would be willing to front ten Baltimore dollars to any Rotarian who needed money to equip himself in order to go join them.

– H.L. Mencken, “Ohio and Parts West”

*   *   *

Another Witchy Eye chapter heading.  The Witchy Eye setting is built to be allusive.  It uses lots of real-world people very lightly, trying to lead the reader to infer a greater world than what is actually set before him.  This is, I think, the sole reference to H.L. Mencken in the book.

What Is Steampunk? (Recent Readings)

(From recent readings.)

Lavie Tidhar's The Bookman promises to be the first of a trilogy.  In feeling, it harks back to K.W. Jeter's Morlock Night and Infernal Devices -- it feels more like dark, imaginative, slightly nutty science fiction than anything that is self-consciously "steampunk" (contrast with Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century books, for instance).  Alien lizards rule the earth (and have since they took over from the Tudors) and are resisted by a coterie of literary lights (Karl Marx, Mrs. Beeton, etc.) possibly allied with a mysterious giant caterpillarish being called the Bookman.  Wild, fun, and full of steamy goodness, yes (multiple lifelike automata, a submarine piloted by Jules Verne, etc.).

The most steampunktacular thing about Paolo Bacigalupi's The Wind-up Girl is its title, which falsely promises clockwork beings.  But the title character is the creation of genetic rather than mechanical engineering, and though Bacigalupi head-fakes in other steampunky directions with his low-gasoline world powered by kink-springs and genetically kluged megadonts, he never quite gets there.  I want to mention him anyway, because what he's done (some have called this "ecopunk") is a cousin to Steampunk and Cyberpunk, and because I found his milieu thoroughly engaging and detailed.  I felt like I was reading James Clavell, only darker and dirtier.

What Is Plot?

Plot is not the same thing as stuff happening.

Stuff happening is life, and it's history (at least, history prior to interpretation).  It may or may not have shape and pattern.  It's one damn thing after another (quotes variously attributed to Henry Ford, Elbert Hubbard and Arnold Toynbee), whether or not those things are related, make sense or go anywhere.

Plot is different.  Plot must have a shape and pattern.  Plot is a character struggling against obstacles to achieve an objective and either succeeding or failing.

Does a book need to have a plot?  No.  It can be driven by character, milieu or something else.  Some books, even famous, award-winning, best-selling books, have weak plots or even no plot at all.

Is any book better if it contains plot, as opposed to just one damn thing after another?  Yes.

Must your novel have a plot?  Yes, absolutely.  Preferably more than one, interconnected and feeding into each other before the end.

What Is Steampunk? (Bartitsu again)

Bartitsu (Baritsu?) is in the news again.  Or at least on a blog.  Apparently, you can take classes.