And that was amazingly quick.

Avevale is fixed! I still can't get at the Drabbles/One-Shots page to edit it, but The Boy In The Bubble is now also up here, while part 15 of Return To Argenthome is here as usual.

I have the best webmaster. That or it was something stupid I did wrong and I'll have to apologise for pestering him. Either way, he's pretty good.

And that was amazingly quick.

Avevale is fixed! I still can't get at the Drabbles/One-Shots page to edit it, but The Boy In The Bubble is now also up here, while part 15 of Return To Argenthome is here as usual.

I have the best webmaster. That or it was something stupid I did wrong and I'll have to apologise for pestering him. Either way, he's pretty good.

Originally posted on http://avevale_intelligencer.dreamwidth.org. Comment here or there or both if you wish.

After-piece (no spoilers)

"Hold on," said Verneen. "There's something wrong with your maths here."

"Ten years after my mother died, why was I only nine and seven-eighths?" Tollain said. "They kept me in stasis for a couple of months while they built the bubble and worked out the procedures. My birthday got postponed."

"No child was ever that precocious," Kaichang scoffed.

"I was. I spent most of my first decade unable to do anything much but read and think. You could say I started out as a grown-up and didn't get a chance to be a child till I was eleven."

"And you've been one ever since," Kaichang said, but she was smiling.

"You left off the ending," Orville said. "What happened after all that?"

"Nothing," Tollain said. "Well, what I'd said would happen happened, obviously. But there was no comeback for what I did."

"Then you were lucky," Orville stated.

"I was careful," Tollain said.

"Do you have any of her recordings left?" Suncat said. "I never heard her, stuck out on Argenthome."

"Neither did I," Kaichang said.

"Nor me," added Verneen.

Tollain shook his head. "I gave them away," he said simply. "I didn't need them any more."

"Maybe we can find some somewhere," Kaichang said hopefully.

Tollain looked at them. It would be a shame to douse their hopes. And anyway, who knew?

"Maybe," he said. "Who's going to give me a hand with the dishes?"

*

If you want to know what all this is about, check out The Boy In The Bubble, a brand new short story available here!

After-piece (no spoilers)

"Hold on," said Verneen. "There's something wrong with your maths here."

"Ten years after my mother died, why was I only nine and seven-eighths?" Tollain said. "They kept me in stasis for a couple of months while they built the bubble and worked out the procedures. My birthday got postponed."

"No child was ever that precocious," Kaichang scoffed.

"I was. I spent most of my first decade unable to do anything much but read and think. You could say I started out as a grown-up and didn't get a chance to be a child till I was eleven."

"And you've been one ever since," Kaichang said, but she was smiling.

"You left off the ending," Orville said. "What happened after all that?"

"Nothing," Tollain said. "Well, what I'd said would happen happened, obviously. But there was no comeback for what I did."

"Then you were lucky," Orville stated.

"I was careful," Tollain said.

"Do you have any of her recordings left?" Suncat said. "I never heard her, stuck out on Argenthome."

"Neither did I," Kaichang said.

"Nor me," added Verneen.

Tollain shook his head. "I gave them away," he said simply. "I didn't need them any more."

"Maybe we can find some somewhere," Kaichang said hopefully.

Tollain looked at them. It would be a shame to douse their hopes. And anyway, who knew?

"Maybe," he said. "Who's going to give me a hand with the dishes?"

*

If you want to know what all this is about, check out The Boy In The Bubble, a brand new short story available here!

Originally posted on http://avevale_intelligencer.dreamwidth.org. Comment here or there or both if you wish.

Recommendation

Anyone who may happen to be reading this who is (a) at Loncon, (b) not planning to zip away immediately after the closing ceremony, and (c) not already going--may I strongly, STRONGLY, recommend that you go and watch and listen to Before The Dawn?

While not actively participating in this performance due to circumstances beyond, I have been involved with this project since its inception twenty-five years ago (in fact I may have caused it, but ssshh), and I hope to continue to be involved in it through the three-disc studio album and the blockbuster movie to be directed by Sir Peter Jackson and featuring twelve new characters and a talking fish. Seriously. Catch it now. They've been working like stink and they're talented, dedicated people; it should be good.

And if you aren't going to read this till you get back from Loncon, I hope you'll go and see Before The Dawn anyway.

Recommendation

Anyone who may happen to be reading this who is (a) at Loncon, (b) not planning to zip away immediately after the closing ceremony, and (c) not already going--may I strongly, STRONGLY, recommend that you go and watch and listen to Before The Dawn?

While not actively participating in this performance due to circumstances beyond, I have been involved with this project since its inception twenty-five years ago (in fact I may have caused it, but ssshh), and I hope to continue to be involved in it through the three-disc studio album and the blockbuster movie to be directed by Sir Peter Jackson and featuring twelve new characters and a talking fish. Seriously. Catch it now. They've been working like stink and they're talented, dedicated people; it should be good.

And if you aren't going to read this till you get back from Loncon, I hope you'll go and see Before The Dawn anyway.

Originally posted on http://avevale_intelligencer.dreamwidth.org. Comment here or there or both if you wish.

The West Wing

So I'm watching season five of The West Wing. I just re-read the book of selected scripts from seasons three and four, and after reading the huge cliffhanger on which season four ended, I had to watch the episodes in which it was resolved, and I just went on from there.

I don't know if I judge post-Sorkin WW too harshly. I mean, yes, it's like watching ballet with the sound off, seeing the characters he created but not hearing the music of his dialogue, but my raised expectations should not bias my judgment of what that fine cast and crew did once he was gone. I'm more than halfway through the season now and I'm still not sure.

The last three seasons of WW are a story of failure. Right from the outset, the world into which we look is different; Bartlet and his team are smaller, the enemies larger, the many defeats a foregone conclusion, the few victories won at huge cost. Before there was hope for real change; now there is just getting through the days, hoping to survive. It's like the difference between the dream and the reality of Obama's presidency. And maybe that's the clue.

I always wanted WW to take off into the fantasy it aspired to be in those early days, to show what could happen if a good man became president, not what would happen. I wanted Bartlet's America to become all that America could be in the world. I'm not talking rainbows and unicorns, I'm talking about what could happen if democracy could really become a set of tools for making people's lives better, instead of a dismal compromise. I think that's what fiction is for; to show us how life could be, not how it is. We already know how it is.

The producers and writers, after Sorkin left, opted not to do that. And I think that's a shame.

Sometimes, on my more tinfoil hat days, I think the knife went in while Sorkin was still there, when Bartlet was railroaded into a morally abhorrent action that the character I'd come to know would never even have considered for a moment; and then I think that the impetus behind the knife may have come from outside, from a real-world regime which saw a fictional president's approval ratings justly outstripping those of the actual occupant of the White House at the time. I'm probably wrong, as most paranoid conspiracy nuts are...but I'll never know one way or the other, and I'm not American so it doesn't matter what I think.

I'll finish season five and maybe watch season six; I don't have the last one, but that's okay because I'm not interested in what happened after Bartlet. I watched enough of it when it was on telly to know how it ends; exactly where it began.

Aaron Sorkin created a magnificent ensemble of characters and made me love each and every one of them, and he put them through hell and made me forgive him for doing it. The least, the very least, he or his successors could have done, in my opinion, was allow their effort, their suffering, to be in some measure rewarded; to let them fulfil even a few of the hopes and dreams with which they embarked on their journey.

They didn't. And I think that's a shame.