Author Archives: ogresan

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About ogresan

Richard Parks' stories have have appeared in Asimov's SF, Realms of Fantasy, Fantasy Magazine, Weird Tales, and numerous anthologies, including several Year's Bests. His first story collection, THE OGRE'S WIFE, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. He is the author of the Yamada Monogatari series from Prime Books.

Review: Beaker’s Dozen by Nancy Kress

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BEAKER’S DOZEN by Nancy Kress, Tor Books, August 1998, Hc, 352 pp., ISBN: 0-312-86537-6

Nancy Kress is known as an Idea writer (Capital I with fanfare and flourishes) with a tendency toward polemic. I don’t think the reader can find better examples of both traditions often in the same story as are found in BEAKERS DOZEN. I also don’t think there’s a better capsule summary of both the potential rewards and pitfalls of either approach.

Kress starts the collection with her Hugo Award winning “Beggars in Spain.” This is arguably Kress’s most well known story, and it’s also a good introduction to her fascination with biotech. As the story opens, Roger and Elizabeth Camden are meeting with a geneticist to order the enhancements they wish for their planned child, rather like a young couple of an earlier time might meet the architect of the house they wished to build. The enhancement that Roger–but not Elizabeth—wants most is sleeplessness. He gets his way, with one glitch: instead of a single daughter, two are conceived. One with the enhancement, Leisha, and one, Alice, without. Continue reading →

Story Time Update

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It’s story time again. The new one, “Another Kind of Glamor,” originally appeared in Aeon #6, published by Bridget and Marty McKenna. Another good magazine that, alas, is no longer with us. You’ll recognize the cast, if not necessarily my take on them. The story’s original title was “A Midsummer Night’s Scream.”  I’ll leave it to you to decide which was more appropriate.

Great Expectations – And Heaven Help You if You Don’t Deliver

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As has been pointed out more times than I can count, and not just by me, anything we write that is meant to be read constitutes an implied contract with the reader, whoever  that reader might be. The reader agrees to read what we’ve written with an open mind, and in return, you agree not to waste their time. I say anything, because this applies to a legal document or a business letter just as much as it applies to a work of fiction. One distinction is, in fiction, you’re allowed to play with reader expectations, mostly because you’re allowed to do anything, even things you don’t yet have the skill to get away with. Even when you do have that skill, turning readers’ expectations on their heads and making them like it is a trick you can only pull now and then, for the obvious reason that, if you do it enough, then the readers’ expectations change and now they’ll be disappointed if you don’t try to lead them down the garden path. The contract remains the same but the assumptions informing that contract change all the time.

Continue reading →

Review: Hyakunin Isshu – One Hundred People, One Poem Each

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Hyakunin Isshu edited by Fujiwara no Teika, Translation by Larry Hammer, Cholla Bear Press, 2011. Print edition through Lulu.com

In the 13th century CE, a nobleman named Teika of the Fujiwara clan compiled an anthology of 100 poems, each by a different poet, the Hyakunin Isshu. This volume wasn’t unique, but as Larry Hammer notes in his foreward, this particular collection has become so famous over the years that any time someone refers to the Hyakunin Isshu, they mean this one. Anyone who has watched much anime may have seen a memory card game called karuta being played on New Year’s Day. That card game is based on this compilation, which shows that the anthology has survived in Japan’s popular culture down to the modern age. Continue reading →

In Which I Am a Raving Idjit

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Pardon my silence of the last few days. In addition to some long-delayed DIY projects for the household, I’ve been nursing my poor computer back to health after a serious system crash. Nothing lost but a few games I didn’t need in the first place, though I will have to key in the data from last year’s tax return. Could have been a lot worse.

Of course, I made it worse than it had to be. For the last two days off and on I’ve been trying to track down a really nasty humm/hiss in my PC’s audio playback, with no success. It was  maddening. Drivers up to date, mixer settings apparently correct, digital sound configured…but it was still hissing like a pit of snakes on espresso. Keep in mind, my day job is computer/network support. And I couldn’t even correct what should have been a relatively  minor audio glitch compared to the system crash?

To make a long story short, I’d left the #$@# headset mic on. I wasn’t using it, I never do, but it was taking input in the form of electronic hissing. Nor did I figure it out like a good tech, I just stumbled across it when looking at the mixer settings for umpteenth time.

Gad. Sometimes I think I’ve got a decent handle on things. At other times I think I’m just not all that bright. This is one for the second category. Tomorrow, maybe, I’ll put an actual post together. It could happen.