We're the Allston-Brighton Fighting Uruk-Hai!

[quislibet]

Mmm. Pie. mishak reminded me (and others) that yesterday was National Pie Day, and so when I told J. she was inspired to partake of our national pie heritage with a small apple pie, which had the advantage of clearing out some aging apples. I have just finished my share of it as Second Breakfast. Damn good stuff.

I'm reading an odd book right now, China Miéville's Perdido Street Station, a fantasy steampunk-ish novel which seems fairly clearly to be based on the author's (or a friend's) homemade RPG setting (there's even a mention of adventurers being in town, rowdy scum who will do anything for "gold or experience"). It's grim and complex (sometimes confusingly so) and more or less enjoyable, but it's not what one could call "captivating." But perhaps it suffers by simple proximity to Maguire's Wicked, which *was* hard to put down.



I had a very strange dream last night that I worked in an office building where the ubiquitous catch phrase was "You betcha," used as vocal filler and greeting as well as an affirmative. A very popular janitor worked on the roof, and people were always going up in the elevator to visit him on their breaks.

Some goth/art-grrl type and I, along with an invented-for-the-dream male best friend -- a guy with a pro-wrestler build and matching facial hair -- were going to ride up to see the janitor, but someone wanted to come with us, and so we were waiting, annoyed that our break was being so used up.

Art-grrl: Where is he?
Wrestler-guy: This is pissing me off.
Art-grrl: Yeah. Couldn't he just tell us to say "you betcha" for him?
Me: Seriously.

[Long conversational pause.]

Art-grrl: [either breaking the silence, or continuing a conversation I have forgotten in my waking moments] The thing about fighting orcs is that it's so anonymous. You don't know whose arrow is hitting whom.

[At this point, a 40-something balding nerd guy with white shirt and pocket protector -- not the person we were waiting for -- comes in. He has the White Hand of Saruman in grease paint on his head.]

Nerd guy: Well, it mighta been us. We're the Allston-Brighton Fighting Uruk-Hai. We're probably the ones that killed your friend.

[Art-grrl reacts in disgust at Nerd guy's presence, especially because at this point he's suddenly just a severed head on the counter, which doesn't seem to strike anyone as particularly unusual, just gross.]

Nerd guy: Hey, can I go up to see the janitor with you?

[Scene change. Art-grrl, Wrestler-guy, and I are riding on top of an elevator, as Wrestler-guy has convinced us it's more fun.]

Me: Can you believe that orc wannabe?

[Art-grrl just rolls her eyes.]

We reach the roof -- and keep going up. At this point I realize that the elevator is on an outside wall of the building, and always has been, and we could have blown off in the heavy winds, and could still be, at any moment. We clutch the top of the elevator as a rope to who-knows-where keeps pulling us up and up and up into the sky. The janitor is yelling something from the roof but we can't hear him. It seems very likely that we are all going to die.

And then I woke up.

Comments

[dfan.livejournal.com]

Hey, I just started Perdido Street Station the other day. I'm only on page 150, but so far I am captivated, enough so that I am already on the verge of ordering his other two novels. I haven't noted any RPGishness but I don't know if I would necessarily pick up on that anyway.

Perhaps I am more impressed by the steampunk aspects than others are, not having read anything else with this sort of setting that I can recall. He does mention a debt to Peake, which I can see.

[alonewiththemoon]

I liked Perdido Street Station. Complex but I liked the dynastic feel to it.

Wicked was good, but Maguire's book about Cinderella, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, was almost exactly the same book, just with a different fairy tale draped around it. It was still a good book, but disappointing.

[ex-cayetana730.livejournal.com]

Wicked is a wicked good book. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is also a good book, though it has a different tone than Wicked. I haven't read the latest, forgot what it's called. Has anyone read it? Is it worth a read?

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

Hmm... Noted re: Maguire. I'll at very least put off reading "Confessions" for a good while.

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

I recommend Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy for more fantasy steampunk goodness.

As for the RPG-ish-ness, it's mainly the multiple fantasy races, the wild lands outside the city where adventurers could go (and plenty of stuff to do in town), even some hints here and there of "oh, that's kinda like this one D&D monster," and the "gold and experience" line sort of clinches it -- but that's not really a criticism.

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

It's called "Lost"; I haven't read it, but as I understand it is not like the others, being set in the modern world, although it apparently has "Christmas Carol" elements. Some reviews I've seen think it tries to do too much. I dunno.

[whatifoundthere.livejournal.com]

I woke up this morning after a horrible series of nightmares about old friends of mine from graduate school dying of cancer, with a subplot involving wolves terrorizing my back yard after having formed a new HQ in my basement. And then I read your LJ and realized: dreams don't have to be like that!

You have no idea how close I am to putting "Allston-Brighton Fighting Uruk-Hai" into my list of LJ interests.

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

Well, the bit at the end was scary. I hate heights.

Allston-Brighton Fighting Uruk-Hai is, upon reading your response, now in MY interests list.

When I mentioned my dream to J., she suggested we make t-shirts. I would feel like a poser, though, as I haven't lived in Allston or Brighton for several years.

[basha.livejournal.com]

I would wear such a shirt...

[dfan.livejournal.com]

OK, I finished Perdido Street Station yesterday, and I see what you mean about the RPG-ishness of those "adventurers," although I read it as more of a joke.

I was reading some interviews after finishing it and he has this to say on the RPG subject:

Cheryl: You mentioned White Dwarf (Games Workshop's house magazine). That indicates a background in role-playing. Has that been an inspiration to you in your writing?

China: It has. I used to play a lot of games, between the ages of about 10 and 13. I haven't played them for about 12 to 13 years and I have no interest in playing them again, but I have a great interest in them as a cultural phenomenon. I quite often buy and read game manuals because I am interested in the way that people design their worlds, and how they decide to delineate them.

Cheryl: That doesn't come over in your writing. There is no way anyone would read Perdido and think, "this is a D&D adventure write-up."

China: I think the sort of stuff I write is a sort of hybrid between Mike Harrison and role-playing. Harrison's work is definitionally fluid, you can't really grasp the worlds he creates, but I'm doing a sort of Mike Harrison role-playing game. I have tried to write like Harrison, but at the same time I have rigidly defined the secondary world. You could give most of the characters in my world stats.

Cheryl: Have you done a Tolkien on us? Can we expect a series of books detailing the background to the Perdido Street Station world?

China: I would love to do that kind of thing. I've got voluminous notes that go way, way beyond the scope of the book. I know all the history and all the races and all the geography and stuff. If someone were interested in it I would love to see it published.

So even if it isn't actually based on some RPG, he seems to be thinking that way.

I think "Mike Harrison" is M. John Harrison, who I already wanted to check out.

Anyway, I liked the book a lot, although I enjoyed the first couple hundred pages more, before the plot got more conventional. I'll be picking up The Scar.