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“Disciple of the Dog” by R. Scott Bakker (Reviewed by Robert Thompson)
Posted in Fantasy Literature on November 29th, 2009 by Admin
Official Scott Bakker Blog
Order “Disciple of the Dog” HERE
Order “Disciple of the Dog” HERE
AUTHOR INFORMATION: R. Scott Bakker is the author of The Prince of Nothing fantasy trilogy and the crime thriller, Neuropath (Reviewed HERE). The White Luck Warrior, the second volume in The Aspect-Emperor trilogy after The Judging Eye, will be published in 2011.
PLOT SUMMARY: Imagine being able to remember everything you’ve ever experienced. This is the lonely world inhabited by Disciple Manning. He is able to recall every conversation, meeting and feeling he has ever had with 100% accuracy. It is more a curse than a blessing, but it makes Disciple a dangerous private investigator.
So when Jonathan and Amanda Bonjour come into his office, Disciple knows immediately it’s about a missing child. He’s had many cases like this before, and they never end well. Accepting the case to find the Bonjour’s missing daughter, Disciple travels to Ruddick, Pennsylvania and to the compound of a charismatic cult known as the Framers, who believe that the world is more than five billion years older than it is and is about to be engulfed by the sun. In that very same town, a neo-Nazi religious organization calling themselves the Church of the Third Resurrection, has also taken root.
Soon, Disciple’s investigation leads to clashes with the unsettling belief systems of both the cult and the church, leaving him fighting for survival and elusive answers before they are swallowed into a shadowy pool of secrets. Meanwhile, it is only a matter of time before the missing girl risks being abandoned forever to the depths of everyone’s forgotten memories…
CLASSIFICATION: Featuring a first-person narrative drenched in cynicism, a noir-esque mystery to solve, and sarcastic humor, Disciple of the Dog is a contemporary private eye novel influenced by the classics, but stamped with R. Scott Bakker’s own unique flavor.
FORMAT/INFO: Disciple of the Dog is 288 pages long divided over fourteen chapters (tracks) with titles like “One Hundred Thousand Cigarettes” and “The Law of Social Gravitation”. Narration is in the first-person exclusively via the private investigator, Disciple Manning. Disciple of the Dog is a standalone novel, but could easily be the first volume in a series of Disciple Manning books.
November 23, 2010 marks the US Hardcover publication of Disciple of the Dog via Forge. The UK version (See image below) was published in both Hardcover and Trade Paperback format on September 16, 2010 via Orion, while the Canadian version was published on August 31, 2010 via Penguin Canada.
ANALYSIS: R. Scott Bakker may be best known for his Prince of Nothing/Aspect-Emperor fantasy novels, but as he demonstrated with the thought-provoking crime thriller, Neuropath, the author is no one trick pony. So I was pretty interested to see what R. Scott Bakker would do with his second non-fantasy book, Disciple of the Dog.
In Disciple of the Dog, R. Scott Bakker tackles the private eye genre, delivering a novel that is at once familiar because of the first-person narrative, cynical protagonist, the noir-esque mystery and sarcastic humor, but still unique because of the character, Disciple Manning, and his extraordinary ability:
“The thing to remember about me is that I don’t forget . . . Anything.
Ever.
It all comes back, endlessly repeating, circumstances soaked in passion. Love. Terror. Disgust. A life crushed in the wheels of perpetual living.”
Thanks to his unique ability of remembering everything, Disciple Manning is instantly different from other fictional private investigators, and, in my opinion, much more interesting. For one, his ability offers a logical explanation for why he’s such a cynical individual. It also explains his love for women—but why he can never have a lasting relationship—why he hates people, and why he’s a “chronic weed smoker”. But his ability does more than just add insight into his character; it infuses Disciple Manning’s personality with a fascinating individuality that is present throughout the novel. Like knowing the exact number of cigarettes he’s smoked or the number of women he’s slept with (558); how he’s seen the same facial expressions so many times that he’s given them titles such as Classic Feminine Disgust, Atypical Bewildered Fury, or High Pity; and how he can playback a past conversation—what Disciple calls “postconversation reveries”—to capture nuances and details that he missed the first time. Best of all, Disciple Manning’s ability gives him a unique perspective on life which he expresses through a variety of compelling monologues, observations and “pearls of cynical wisdom”:
“One of the great paradoxes of being human has got to be the way the past is as much at the mercy of the present as the present is at the mercy of the past. As soon as we ziplock something in memory, it becomes static, something that we can run circles around. Considered from this standpoint, it really does seem that everything we do is fraught with decisions, as if every moment were a window onto thousands of future possibilities, instead of automatic and obscure.”
“If there’s one thing Hollywood is good at, it’s giving us roles to play. Everyone loves to pretend they’re in a movie, no matter where you go in the world. Good thing, too. If it wasn’t movies, then it would be some pyschotic legend from the Middle Ages—or worse yet, scripture.”
“Rule one of all private investigating is that everyone, but everyone, is full of shit.”
Of course, Disciple Manning would not be nearly as interesting if not for R. Scott Bakker’s writing, which is just superb in this book, and reminded me of a cross between Charlie Huston, Dean Koontz, Mike Carey, Chuck Palahniuk, and Duane Swierczynski. In other words, readers should expect a skillfully written novel brimming with sharp dialogue and humor, vivid prose, and convincing characterization, although I would love to learn more about Disciple’s past (military, prison, suicide attempts) if Bakker ends up writing another Disciple Manning novel. True to form, the book also features some of R. Scott Bakker’s trademark philosophical observations on everything from religion to society to life. Compared to Neuropath however, Disciple of the Dog is much more accessible to readers.
While Disciple Manning and the writing are excellent, the story leaves a little to be desired. Though skillfully handled, the plot twists and red herrings were underwhelming, while the major revelations at the end just felt anticlimactic. Plus, the novel seemed to drag when the book focused more on the story than on Disciple and his various insights, “postconversation reveries”, and “cynical wisdom”. Also, Disciple of the Dog is not what I would call a ‘page-turner’, full of heart-pumping action and thrilling cliffhangers, even though the book is one that readers can breeze through quickly.
Aside from these minor shortcomings, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Disciple of the Dog. R. Scott Bakker’s writing was riveting, Disciple Manning was fascinating, and the book left me wanting more. So hopefully this isn’t the end of Disciple Manning, because the unique private investigator deserves to have his own series…
Taking A Shot FAIL
Posted in Classic Literature on November 22nd, 2009 by Admin Tags: A Shot FAIL, Taking
Science fiction book club, became the new fashion of young people!
Posted in Sci-Fi Literature on November 21st, 2009 by Admin
Is a “great nation” theme to attract the young
Participate in science-fiction book club can see many handsome boys & girls, times really have changed
Moderator candy and guests Ren Dongmei
Guests: Song Yichang, Han Song
Science fiction Literature,Science fiction stories,living in a mystic world.
CFP: PCA 2011–San Antonio, TX. April 20-23, 2011
Posted in Romance Literature on November 20th, 2009 by Admin
It’s that time again! We’re soliciting proposals for the Popular Culture Association conference. This year it’s in San Antonio, TX. As always, it’s over Easter weekend!!! April 20-23, 2011. So if it’s a problem to be away from your family for Easter/Passover, we’ll miss you, but we’ll understand.
PCA is an amazing conference to go to to experience the joy and sheer intellectual brilliance of the field of Popular Romance Studies. We are truly a community. We hang around together all weekend, eating most of our meals together, talking between panels. It’s a VERY inviting conference for new scholars, and for interested non-scholars. We’ve had undergraduates and brand new graduate students present their papers at PCA and they loved it. We’re welcoming, friendly, fun, a little bawdy, and very very interesting.
With no further ado, here’s the full Call For Papers:
PCA/ACA 2010 National Conference
San Antonio, TX, April 20-23, 2011
Call For Papers: Romance Area
(Conference info: http://pcaaca.org/conference/national.php)
Deadline for submission: December 15, 2010.
We are interested in any and all topics about or related to popular romance: all genres, all media, all countries, all kinds, and all eras. All representations of romance in popular culture (fiction, stage, screen—large or small, commercial, advertising, music, song, dance, online, real life, etc.), from anywhere and anywhen, are welcome topics of discussion.
We will consider proposals for individual papers, sessions organized around a theme, and special panels. Sessions are scheduled in one-hour slots, ideally with four papers or speakers per standard session.
If you are involved in the creative industry of popular romance (romance author/editor, film director/producer, singer/songwriter, etc.) and are interested in speaking on your own work or on developments in the representations of popular romance, please contact us!
Some possible topics (although we are by no means limited to these):
- Popular Romance on the World Stage (texts in translation, Western and non-Western media, local and comparative approaches)
- Romance Across the Media: crossover texts and the relationships between romance fiction and romantic films, music, art, drama, etc.; also the paratexts and contexts of popular romance
- Romance High and Low: texts that fall between “high” and “low” culture, or that complicate the distinctions between these critical categories
- Romance Then and Now: representations of Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Romantic, Modern, Postmodern love
- Romancing the Marketplace: romantic love in advertising, marketing, and consumer culture
- Queering the Romance: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender romance, and representations of same-sex love within predominantly heterosexual texts
- BDSM Romance and representations of romantic/erotic power exchange
- Romance communities
- New Critical Approaches, such as readings informed by critical race theory, queer theory, postcolonial studies, or empirical science (e.g., the neurobiology of love)
- The Politics of Romance, and romantic love in political discourse (revolutionary, reactionary, colonial / anti-colonial, etc.)
- Individual Creative Producers or Texts of Popular Romance (novels, authors, film, directors, writers, songwriters, actors, composers, dancers, etc.)
- Gender-Bending and Gender-Crossing / Genre-Bending and Genre-Crossing / Media-Bending and Media-Crossing Popular Romance
- African-American, Latina, Asian, and other Multicultural romance
- Young Adult Romance
- History of/in Popular Romance
- Romance and Region: places, histories, mythologies, traditions
- Definitions and Theoretical Models of Popular Romance: it’s not all just happily ever after
As we have done for the past three years, the Romance area will meet in a special Open Forum to discuss upcoming conferences, work in progress, and the future of the field of Popular Romance Studies. Of particular interest this year: the 2011 New York City conference for the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR), planning for the 2012 IASPR conference, and the first volume of the Journal of Popular Romance Studies (JPRS).
Presenters are encouraged to make use of the new array of romance scholarship resources online, including the romance bibliography, the RomanceScholar listserv, the open Forums at the webpage of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance, and the Journal of Popular Romance Studies.
Submit a one-page (200-300 words) proposal or abstract (via regular mail or e-mail) by December 15, 2010, to the Area Chairs in Romance:
Sarah S. G. Frantz
Department of English and Foreign Languages
Fayetteville State University
1200 Murchison Road
Fayetteville, NC 28301
(910) 672-1438
sarahfrantz AT gmail DOT com
Darcy Martin
Adjunct Faculty, Women’s Studies
East Tennessee State University
12 Wataugua Court
Bluffton, SC 29909
(843)705-4861
martindj AT etsu DOT edu
If you have any questions as all, please contact one or both of the area chairs. Please feel free to forward, cross-post, or link to this call for papers.
Obama and Gay Marriage
Posted in Pop Literature on November 17th, 2009 by AdminIf radicalism has had any positive value in the last century, it was to scandalize an otherwise complacent centre-left consensus on civil rights, one reason why I’ll always prefer the hardheaded wisdom of “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” to the treacly pastiche of “I Have a Dream.”
Richard Just — which rather sounds like the pen name someone in his position would adopt — has authored an indignant essay in The New Republic against Barack Obama’s nonsensical views on gay marriage, which have objectively placed the Democratic president to the right of “Laura Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and, according to a new CNN poll, 52 percent of the American people.” The relevant portion is this:
Obama argues that he is against gay marriage while also opposing efforts like Prop 8 that would ban it. He justifies this by saying that state constitutions should not be used to reduce rights. (His exact words: “I am not in favor of gay marriage, but when you’re playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that that is not what America is about.”) Obama appears to be saying that it is fine to prohibit gay people from getting married, as long as the vehicle for doing so is not a constitution. Presumably, then, he supports the numerous states that have banned same-sex marriage through other means, without resorting to a constitutional amendment? If so, he might be the only person in the country to occupy this narrow, and frankly absurd, slice of intellectual terrain. Obama has also said he favors civil unions rather than gay marriage because the question of where and how to apply the label “marriage” is a religious one. This argument makes even less sense than his stance on state constitutions, since marriage, for better or for worse, is very much a government matter.
By now it’s common knowledge that Ken Mehlman, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and the former manager of George W. Bush’s presidential re-election campaign, prefers the company of men to women and believes in same-sex marriage legislation. Was it cynicism or prudence that impelled a high-ranking conservative not to make the most of this aspect of his “identity” when it might have made a political difference? The Daily Show will no doubt have a sober and fair-minded discussion about this very topic in the days to come. But the DNC and those ever diminishing Obama torch-bearers are hardly in a position to score partisan points off of Mehlman’s disclosure.
In fact, the best arguments in favor of gay marriage have come from conservatives such as Jamie Kirchick and Jonathan Rauch, both of whom can’t quite fathom what’s leftist about gentrifying another ten percent of the population. (There’s also likely some forward-thinking Karl Rove in the younger crop of GOP operatives who sees expanding the party’s voter base by endorsing such a platform.)
Meanwhile, the best half-serious arguments against gay marriage come from cultural traditionalists, but not the kind you think. There are quite a few homosexuals, mostly older, who fear that by gaining admittance to mainstream institutions, they stand to forfeit the aura of camp subversiveness and bohemian affiliation that formerly clung to the “lifestyle.” If you know anything about English poetry in the 1930′s, you’ll know exactly what this cultivated and storied aesthetic looks like: Larkin called it the oh-my-dear-ist school, best embodied by Auden and Spender. Yet this contingent is becoming a source for idiosyncratic nostalgia — the sexual equivalent of Yiddish revivalism — equally embarrassed by the term “partner” as it is by Bravo’s reality television programming. A viable cultural movement it is not.
Snarksmith: new york. gossip. art. politics. pop culture. literature. etc.
Hate Makes the Soul
Posted in Fantasy Literature on November 15th, 2009 by AdminHere’s a premise for a sci-fi movie about robots and personhood.
Philosophical premise: what if souls emerge from the combination of all human personality traits (love, empathy, curiosity, etc.) So when all the conditions for human personhood appear in a being (human, robot, animal, etc.) then that being counts/is a person.
The plot: computer programmers create a robot that has all the positive human attributes and personality traits (love, empathy, curiosity, etc.) and expect that upon reboot, their creation will “come to life.” To their great dismay, the robot indeed becomes operational, but does not display any “spark of life,” personality, or humaness. Simply put, there is just something missing.
Through some accident (like a programmer makes the mistake of working on the program while extremely frustrated with office politics) other, negative, human attributes get injected into the robot’s program. Now, when rebooted, the robot stands a little looser, looks from face to face, interrupts — in other words the robot displays humanity and is somehow, maybe inexplicably, clearly and thoroughly alive.
As a subplot, it becomes equally clear (or is at least suggessted) that one or more of the programmers, or administrators, or scientists (or someone) demonstrates that he/she/they are not quite human because they do not display the full range of human personality (maybe they are missing a “bad” human quality).
The author could also introduce lab chimps or something to hint at questions about animal personhood too.
???
Glitter: The Unity College Fantasy Literature & Philosophy Blog
Teaching Collaboration around Romantic Individualism
Posted in Romance Literature on November 14th, 2009 by AdminAs a scholar and a teacher, I enjoy experimenting with both individual and collaborative projects. I tend to feel that the humanities are unique in their ambivalence about collaboration. On the one hand, the web is offering humanities scholars many opportunities for collaboration; on the other hand, I always find myself wondering how much a collaborative article, project, or book will “count” when it comes to hiring or tenure.
The topic is especially interesting for someone who teaches the Romantic period, since Romanticism is often associated with individualism. And yet, Romantic authors also expressed collectivist sentiments. As Beth Lau points out, even famously individualistic male Romantic writers struggled with individualism:
In a number of poems, Wordsworth describes his initial penchant for solitary nature worship giving way to love of other human beings. [...] Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner is one of the most powerful works ever written on the horrors of solitude and the problems inherent in overwheening individualism, and Shelley’s Alastor is also a cautionary tale about the dangers of solopsism. John Keats increasingly wished to do ‘some good in this world’ instead of merely writing lush, escapist poetry. Even Byron, whose early poems featured such gloomy, misanthropic, solitary heroes as Childe Harold, the Giaour, and Manfred, ended his career with the comic satire Don Juan, which is very much concerned with people in society. (224)
I feel that a similar argument could be made about William Blake. While he frequently celebrated his individual vision and the originality of his work, Blake also stressed the importance of “self-annihilation,” elaborating in his poem Milton that “We are not Individuals but States: Combinations of Individuals” (32.10; E131). And we must not forget the frequent, though often unmentioned, participation of Catherine Blake in the production of William Blake’s illuminated books.
The problem with emphasizing collaboration and collectivity in Romantic courses is not only the historical association of Romanticism with individualism, but also the institutional makeup of the humanities. Most humanities courses still overwhelmingly favor individual success and failure. As David Parry recently noted on the blog AcademHack, collaborative projects are extremely difficult to assess but enormously important to teach. “I want to encourage and evaluate students for who they are,” Parry explains, “but on the other hand I see as part of my job to teach students how to work in groups.”
Parry’s proposed solution to this delimma is to give each group the ability to fire one of their members. The rejected member is then required to complete the group assignment alone. While I feel that Parry’s plan could work quite well for his course, I would like to move in a different direction that I feel is more conducive to the ambivalence many writers had with individualism during the Romantic period.
I’d like to use this blog to plan a course around digital culture and Romantic Individualism. My central focus in this course will be William Blake, since I am primarily interested in the artists and critics who have transmitted Blake’s work from the Romantic period to the present and their impact on the image of Blake as an individualist writer. I would also like to use the course to experiment with collective subjectivities: in the content of the course, in the course’s exploration of the William Blake’s subjectivity, and in the makeup of the assignments and their assessment. Future posts will chart possible assignments, readings, ideas for discussion and class projects. I would also like to hear suggestions and criticisms from teachers, scholars, or anyone who visits this site. What are your thoughts about the usefulness of collaborative projects? Do you have any successes or failures to share?
Reference
Lau, Beth. “Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.” A Companion to Romanticism. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 219-26.
Autocomplete Me: Can Jesus FAIL
Posted in Classic Literature on November 12th, 2009 by Admin Tags: Autocomplete, FAIL, Jesus
Emma, part 31
Posted in Classic Literature on November 9th, 2009 by AdminThis story was written by Jane Austen
This part is called, Chapter 31
Read by Sibella Denton
Download the show
