The Day After.

Fantastic Christmas actually. Negotiated a SRO 4:00 PM Mass with the Widget, the Wadget and Boff. Returned home and wrapped presents until mid-night. The brother came over to help and we watched The Thirteenth Warrior and episodes of The Tick while wrapping a gazillion presents. Then, the Widget, the Wadget and Boff were up promptly at 5:30 AM and it was only yelled threats of bloody murder and reprisals from Santa Clause that let me sleep a bit more. The unwrapping of presents and the visiting of the folks were all fantastic.

On to other things. John of John and Belle have a blog has a very interesting discussion on the anti-Tolkienism of fantasy writer China Mieville. I have had Mieville's Perdido Street Station for over a month and except for a few desultory forays into the first pages, it has gone unread. (This happens occasionally. I will have no interest in a book sometimes for years and then, suddenly, rip through it in a matter of days.) I was surprised to find that Mieville is (a) a Marxist and (b) male. Perhaps those bits of information will be enough to jump start my interest in his book.

In any event, if you have an interest in the literary theory of fantasy, go check out John's essay.