Firstly, I read Legacy of the Darksword by Weis & Hickman. I don't know why, really, other than it's been sitting around for over a year, and I've been dreading actually having to read it, but I eventually got around to it. Boy, what a fetid pile of rot that was. For those of you who avoid such painfully wretched examples of fantasy writing, Weis & Hickman are the 'series writers' for infinite numbers of fantasy stories. DragonLance (yes, it comes complete with StudlyCaps), the Death Gate Cycle, etc, etc. Well, they also put out a trilogy (with companion explorative mini-RPG) about a world full o' magic, that gets destroyed because they're all a bunch of corrupt losers. It was such a nice, tidy little trilogy. All the loose ends were pretty much cleared up at the end. It had a sense of fairly good finality to it. But noooo, they just didn't learn to quit while they were ahead, albeit not that far ahead. They had to give in to Creeping Sequelitis. The fools! The mad fools! Name any given cliche in fantasy literature, and it shows up here. The pain! The pain! It also seems to suffer from a pat, "Damn, we ran out of book" ending. But enough about that.
Also indulged in this weekend was the rest of the 'History of Sex', which I'd been taping. The early bits were a tadge distressing, but once you got past the Marquis de Sade (what a sick little puppy HE was), you emerge into the wall-to-wall hillarity of the Orient (with their wacky philosophies and sex positions that sound like their names could be used for martial arts, instead of marital arts (the "Pouncing Tiger" or "Galloping Horses" or "Horny Water Buffalo"). Well, maybe not the last one. Plus, as an added bonus, you get those wacky people of the ancient world, including the pre-verts of Ancient Egypt (who didn't even have a word for 'virgin', the pervs) - with the extra-added bonus of lots of shots of the interior art of pyramids, tombs, etc. You see, the ancient Egyptians had no problems about carving their pictures of kings and such with whopping great, well, phallic protuberances. What made this especially amusing was that some ancient Arabic censor had gone back, centuries later, and chiselled them out, so you get these magestic-looking carvings of ancient Egyptians, complete with the remnants of coloring from some ancient artist, looking resplendent except for that weird carved-out area in the shape of an... egads! No wonder all the attendants carved in stone around the great kings seem to be smirking. "Wow!" the ancient spirits of the place might be thinking, "If his Highness ever does reincarnate, is he EVER gonna be pissed." No wonder all those ancient egypt shows seem to show the same few wall pictures over and over - it must be hard to find ones without any blazingly obvious bits o' eroticism. Or you just have the narrator stand in front of the naughty bits. Ah, well. I suppose I find this FAR too amusing.
I'm just surprised they found so many prim, proper looking professor types to narrate this thing. It's probably the most interesting thing they've ever been asked.
Ah, the History Channel. It's not just for World War 2 reruns any more.
In other news, I took the test o' otakuness and discovered I was a whopping 51% Otaku Corrupt. Egads! Clearly, this means I'm doomed. Or not doomed enough. One of the two.
Rant 'o the day contains no additives, preservatives or small woodland creatures of any kind. Use only as directed. Do not expose to direct sunlight. Do not fold, spindle, multilate or remove identifying tags. Handle with care. Contains less than 3% milk fat by weight, not by volume. Squeeze the lemon.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT