Epic Fantasy Grows Up - A Song of Ice and Fire...

So, you know, I have been reading Epic Fantasy - and even non-epic fantasy - for as long as I can remember. Way back to my early childhood, starting with books such as The Chronicles of Narnia and The Hobbit, and progressing over the years to Michael Moorcock, Robert E Howard, Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, Tad Williams, Robert Jordan, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera - and with a few notable exceptions - Potter and the Vampires! - I have filled my library with, literally, thousands of books! My perusals have ranged from the depths of deep space science fiction (Clarke, Asimov, Niven & Pournelle) through science fantasy (Silverberg, Feist, Herbert) across Sword and Sorcery (Moorcock, Howard, McCaffery), and on into the depths if true fantasy itself (Tolkien, Brooks, Williams), so, as arrogant as it sounds, I like to think I actually know what I am talking about when it comes to these genres.

 

So, a few days ago, I was chatting with one of my best friends back in dear old Blighty, and we were discussing our current reading materials. Soss (my friend's nickname) was reading some historical fiction - now there's an oxymoron if ever there was one! - as was I. But he also mentioned that he was reading A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, the first volume in A Song of Ice and Fire. Of course, I had heard all of the hype around the HBO television series, but had never watched it, feeling television has been currently over run by fantasy spins-offs, and had not even wanted to approach the books, as I had been really busy over the last few years with the vagaries of the RLJ, as well as editing the works of some budding authors. But when Soss told me that he was really enjoying the book, I decided to bite the bullet, and bought the five-volume boxed set. Ordering them online meant I got a good deal on the price, too. :)

 

I had been, at the time, reading Mr. Mercedes  by Stephen King, and was enjoying it well enough. However, once I had Martin's books in my grubby little paws, the draw of The Perilous Realm exerted its influence over my mind, and I thought I'd just sample the beginning of A Game of Thrones, to get the flavour, as it were.

 

And, at this time, I am still reading...

 

I did feel it took a while (50 pages or so) to get into, as Martin takes a few chapters to introduce the main families and their provenance, but once you get through that initial exposure, I have to admit, the experience is stimulating and engulfing in a way that only a few, exceptional fantasy novels are. I am pleased to say that Martin is an accomplished storyteller, and his skill shines through in his writing. But what really makes his work shine out as a major achievement within the genre is the fact that, written with the edginess that modern literature now allows, it takes the reader into a more realistic version of the imagined world - more violent, more bitter, earthier, sexier, more physical - than has previously been seen. We would never see such brutal scenes as Jaime's attack on Bran, or sexuality like Jaime and Cersei or Daenerys and Khal Drogo, in the works of Tolkien or Brooks. What Martin has envisioned is a world where the fantasy is all grown up! These are no YA or NA soppy meanderings! These are sword through the heart, foot to the nuts, and spit in your eye yarns, full of dirt and dust, malice and lust, with a character list that rivals Tolstoy's War and Peace for complexity and sheer numbers!

 

Let's just say - I will be reading all five books, maybe more than once. And, maybe then, I will go on to watch the HBO series, and be one of those who complains about the changes made in the name of television!

 

I'll let you know how it goes! :)

Oh - and thanks for the advice, Soss! :)    

The Best Gift Ever??

Like the majority of the male sex, I have to admit to not being very good at buying gifts for my wife. It's not that I am not romantic - although I am sure there could be some discussion about that - nor is it that I don't care. I just seem to get so involved in the other aspects of life that personal matters are not top of my priority list - even when they should be. Added to that, again like most males, I am a world class procrastinator outside of the work regime, so personal things tend to get left to the last minute - or even later!!

Sure, you may say, that makes me such a bad husband, but, in my defence, as weak as it is, I am not alone!!

Then, even if you do get something in time for the big event - whether it's a birthday, Valentine's day, Easter, Christmas, an anniversary, etc, there's the dilemma over what to buy! Diamonds might be forever, or be a girl's best friend, but you don't get much for a large amount of money! Lingerie, while good for you, is frowned upon as sexist or chauvanistic - apart from often being downright uncomfortable. Then there's the size issue - when is an 8 not and 8? When it's a 6 or a 10, or any other number you care to choose from! And clothing is just as fraught with quandaries! Apparently, I have the knack of being able to buy the fuddy-duddiest of styles that not even my grandmother would be seen in! Gift cards indicate a lack of imagination and an abdication of responsibility! Make her buy her own gift, that's right! Chocolates and candies are a dietary no-no, indicating you want to make your beloved wider, while buying anything to do with the household or the kitchen indicates your belief that a woman's place is slaving over a hot stove, or vacuuming and dusting, or washing and ironing your clothes!

And, of course, flowers wither and die, despite their temporary beauty! And who can trust restaurant food any more, let alone find a decent, romantic eatery?

In recent years, though, I do have to admit, to having bought for my wife what I consider to be the best gift I have ever bought her.  "What is this wonderous item?" I hear you ask with baited breath! What marvel have I uncovered that has achieved such a pinnacle of success?

A laptop computer!

That's all? A laptop computer!!

Yup! So, you may ask - and I know you will - what makes this laptop computer so much more successful as a gift than any of those other items listed above?

It's really quite simple. My wife has used that laptop every day since the day I gave it to her, over 3 years ago! How many dresses get worn every day for over three years? Unlike men, women don't wear the same pair of shoes everyday. Jewellery is kept for unusual and/or special occasions, and food and chocolate would have long been flushed away down the proverbial you-know-where!! Lingerie would have worn out, or been thrown out, and kitchen and household utensils would have been thrown back at you - and deservedly so!

Sure, the laptop is far from perfect! It has its moments and weaknesses - crappy power supply, memory-hungry software, filthy viruses spread by small-minded malicious morons, etc, etc, etc! But, nevertheless, it has been resorted to every day as often as possible, whether for research in home decor, utensils, appliances, design, or communications with long-lost friends and social networking, or just playing games for light relief, or finding a myriad of childhood and teenhood tunes on Youtube - it's ability to satisfy requirements is endless!

It is, beyond doubt, the best gift I have ever bought for my wonderful wife, who deserves so much more from me than I tend to give! (That's her being nibbled by that giant serpent behind this posting!!! ;>) And I know how much she appreciates it, because she still uses it every day! Who knows - maybe as a thank you, I can get her to use that cat-o-nine-tails on me I bought last Christmas, hmm? ;)

And now all I have to do is find a new gift for her upcoming birthday that will be every bit as popular and useful as her laptop!!

Fat chance of that!!!

Happy New Hobbitry to 2013!!

So - I went to see the Peter Jackson version of The Hobbit : An Unexpected Journey a few days ago, and have to say that, overall, I am very impressed and highly pleased with the result.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I have been a HUGE Tolkien fan for the best part of forty (yes - forty!) years, and I always approach these film versions with a critical eye toward the poetic license they will undoubtedly take.   They did it with The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and some of that did not work as well as it should have done.  And, having read or listened to many of the preambles leading up to The Hobbit, I knew there were going to be aspects of the adaptation I would not like or find difficult to accept.  And there are, but, overall, the package seems to have worked so far!

 

Yes - I wasn`t too keen on the inclusion and representation of Radaghast the Brown, and the reincarnation of Azog the Terrible, alive and well and masquerading as The Pale Orc!  Not really necessary to the storyline.  However, the inclusion of the The White Council meeting helped build the link between The Hobbit and LOTR, as did the appearance of many of the cast members from LOTR in the introduction.

 

But, for me, the biggest pleasers are the majestic representations of the Middle Earth kingdoms, countries and vales, along with the creatures that Tolkien populated his world with.  The additional time provided to the director and producers by stretching the relatively small book into three three-hour films allows them to lavish more time to display these lands and creatures in even greater detail than in the LOTR films, and makes the journey even more worthwhile.

 

Of course, what they fill out with scenery makes the plot even thinner and more tenuous, hence the need to fill the gaps with parts of the Untold Stories and pure fabrications, such as the meetings of The White Council, the trip of Radaghast and his Rhosgobel Rabbits to Dol Guldur, the fabrication of the Morgul Blade of Angmar, and the resurrection of Azog.  But, to a student of JRR such as myself, seeing some of these things included gladdens me, but others detract from the tale, and are more of a distraction.  But, as I already said, all-in-all, I find the whole package very entertaining and very enjoyable, and not only am I looking forward to Part 2, I am also looking forward to seeing Part 1 again!

 

Ah, yess, my Preciousss, I want to see that nasty little Hobbitses again!

And I hope you see it too, if you haven't already!

 

 

Farewell 2012 - And All That Jazz!

So - here we are - on the verge of the End of 2012, and the start of 2013! How time flies!

I cannot say 2012 has been the best year of my life so far - although it is far from being the worst! It has had many challenges, and many goals (and their inherent dreams) still remain unattained, although, admittedly, a lot closer than they have been in previous years. Some of the impacts that have either delayed or prevented certain achievements were not of my own making, nor were they under my control, which makes them even harder to bear.

 

But I am not going to dwell on those events and occurrences, as that will only serve to bring the mood lower than need be!  There were still many things about 2012 that gave me a certain amount of success - especially in areas I had only pondered about previously - and which have laid a very hopeful foundation for the future on a number of levels.  Work went well, with the new company being very successful, and looking to continue that for the next 12 months.  And my writing has been successful in ways that both myself and my wife find amusing and inspiring, if somewhat unexpected, and, with a little more effort from myself, looks poised to bring even more success in the coming years - hopefully to the extremes of my dreams.  The only challenge is reigning in the new diversity and channelling that into those routes that others would expect from me, while still allowing the new routes I am following to achieve their success.  It will be interesting!

 

So I enter 2013 with a certain amount of optimism, putting behind me the depradations and interferences of the past - both 2012 and beyond - and looking forward to bringing greater achievements and successes to ever-growing audience - no matter what the field or endeavour!

 

Another aspect of my future life is these blogs I have so recently started writing.  These will be a challenge on a number of fronts.  First - I am by no means a strict diarist or journalist (in the pure sense of that word), so writing regularly will be an interesting challenge.  Then the challenge to that challenge is to write something interesting, informative, or entertaining, because I don't believe in writing a blog entry just for the sake of having a blog entry.  And the other challenge is keeping it fun and interesting for myself, otherwise it will languish in that special purgatory set aside for failed hobbies and projects that we all have!  Time to make the hobbies into obsessions!

 

Finally - if you are reading this, I wish you a very happy and successful 2013.

 

Paul J Todd

 

 

 

Tragedy Revisits Tragedy - Newtown, CT, Friday Dec 14, 2012

Friday, December 14, 2012.

11 short days before the biggest celebration of Children on this planet.

Now another day we will always remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard the horrendous and soul-destroying news of yet another massacre of school children at the hands of yet another nutbar.  And another outcry against the crazy gun-culture upon which the United States of America thrives.

 

And the rhetoric begins yet again - and will go on endlessly, with little, if any, positive outcome.  Asking Americans to give up their guns is like asking Christians to give up God.

 

But I am not here to join that diatribe.

 

I am here to remind us all that, for the people of Newtown, Connecticut, the healing has only just begun, and will be never ending.  Yes - there will be grief, anger, denial, and, eventually, acceptance, but there will never be release.  Don't believe me?  Then just ask any of the residents of the small village of Aberfan, in the Merthyr Vale of southern Wales.  There, on October 21st, 1966, a rain-soakened slag heap of black slurry, dug from the coal mine that dominated the landscape, slid down the side of the valley it had been piled upon, and crushed Pantglas Junior School, where the young children of the village had just finished singing their Harvest Festival hymns.

 

116 children, between the ages of 7 and 10, almost half the population of the school, died under the crushing power of that landslide, along with 28 adults - teachers and other village inhabitants.  The political fallout from that tragedy is still going on - over 46 years later.

 

But that is not what I am here to talk about either.  I am here to tell everyone who isn't part of that community that there are still those living in Aberfan, and those who have left since the disaster, that still suffer symptoms of what would called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and who have various levels of psychological distress - whether they be parents of lost children, husbands and wives of many of the adults who died there - but, most of all, the children who survived when their brothers, sisters and friends died around them.  Even now, many of them still feel guilt that they survived when so may didn't, or feel that they could have done more to help, when, in reality, there was nothing that they could have done at that time to prevent what occurred.  The prevention was something that should have been done a long time prior to the disaster, and, like at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the cure was already well known.  And never acted upon.

 

The slag heaps could have been moved.  The guns could have been restricted.  In both situations, the danger was well known - and ignored.

 

So, we should expect nothing different from the survivors of Sandy Hook.  Sure, they will look like they are coping and getting on with life, but, deep inside, the doubts and worries will already be starting to worm their way into the psyches of those fresh, young minds - such fertile ground for those memories.  And even those who, like me, were never involved in Aberfan or Sandy Hook, there will be long-term changes in our realities - subtle but persistent - that will modify our behaviour in ways we don't anticipate.  I mean - I was 8 when Aberfan happened, and never realised just how much it had impacted me, but, forty years later, I was suddenly inspired, and not in a subtle way, but in an almost manic experience, to write a poem - Aberfan, 21st October, 2006 - that detailed the events in ways I didn't know I had even recorded in my mind.  For the short while it took to write that poem, it was almost an obsession with me, and filled my mind and heart in ways that made it a relief to complete the work - to get it out of my system!  If someone who was hundreds of miles away from Aberfan, in a time when the only news was a 30 minute broadcast or the paper, with no internet or other means of instant communication, could be affected in that way, imagine how much more damage the exposure available to todays watchers, let alone to the victims of this tragedy, will perpetrate.

 

It is going to be a long, hard recovery for Newtown, Connecticut.  Pray for them if you believe.  In any case, love them and give them peace.

 

 

 

Good Evening!!!

Ha-ha!

I LOVE saying that, in my full-on English accent! LOL

It's become a bit of a trade-mark of mine - or, conversely, one of the minor annoyances - that eventually everyone I work with becomes familiar.

Welcome to The Barney Blogs!

What's this blog about, and who is Barney, anyway?

Well - Barney was my nickname a long, long time ago, way back at High School, (more commonly known as South Shields Grammar-Technical School for Boys!), where I was a member of a small group of miscreants known as The Flock.  Most of us either had, or were subsequently given, weird and wonderful nicknames.  Mine was Barney (Barney Googoo in full - don't ask!), and others were Olly Beak (quite normal, really, that one), Clag, Sos, and - wait for it - the (in)famous Arnold Vou-Bag Winklepicker!  We got up to a lot of nefarious activities, and earned a few stripes - if you get my drift! - but, all-in-all, we were a pretty harmless bunch of proto-nerds, that have since developed into a bunch of older nerds - those of us that have survived so far.

 

So, the name stuck, and, as one of my companion blogs will attest, I subsequently suffixed the Barney with Bolanoid - Barney Bolanoid - because I was, and still am, a huge Marc Bolan fan and officianado - although age has both mellowed and expanded my musical horizons - but that's what the other blog is for!!

 

So - that's the who!  The why?

 

Well, like all semi-sentient under-achievers, the older you get, the more time you spend reminiscing about - queue Bruce - The Glory Days - i.e. those days long ago when you and your pals dreamed - actually fantasised really - about all of the wonderful prospects and achievements you would achieve over the long span of life remaining to you.  With the benefit of crystal-clear hindsight, you can look back through the span of years between then and now, and think about all of the good, indifferent, and bad times, that are sprinkled along the path of Time.  Some of these events are actually worth recounting and sharing - either as entertainment, or as educational experiences, or, further, as opportunities to rant and rave about the many odd and strange occurrences we all experience.

 

So - that's why The Barney Blogs exists - reminiscences of the Glory Days revisited for your entertainment and enlightenment. I hope you find them as enjoyable and stimulating to read as I will to write them, and take the time to let me know with a comment of two.

 

Nice to meet you!!

 

Barney