Bimbos of the Death Sun

I mentioned that one topic this blog would cover would books - the one's I've read anyway. Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb (originally published in 1987) is the first I've read (actually listened to) since I made this committment (threat?).

I'm actually a little embarassed by my selection of Bimbos. It's bad enough to be the most obscure of bloggers, without writing about books whose titles indicate that the obscurity is richly deserved. I mean, Bimbos of the Death Sun? Really! Wouldn't it have been nice if I could have started by telling the world what I think about Proust's Remembrance of Things Past or something?

My reading tastes actually tend to be all over the map but, even so, Bimbos is a bit of a departure for me. I only read it because I was looking for a short, unabridged, downloadable audiobook that would fit in some empty space on my MP3 player.

I have a long enough commute that I'm always listening to audiobooks in the car, while at the same time reading dead tree books at home. The problem with audiobooks, though, is that the selection tends to be limited. That is also their greatest virtue. Just to get something to listen to, you will listen to something in the car that you would never think to pick up and read at home. At times the results are tedious beyond imagining. Mostly, though, you explore strange territory and find it interesting.

Anyway, now that my excuses are out of the way, what about Bimbos?

It was a very pleasant surprise. The biggest surprise was that it is not a science fiction book. It is supposed to be a mystery but the mystery in the book is only a very transparent fig leaf behind which the author has pretended to hide a thoroughly enjoyable satire.

As such, it has only one obvious problem. The satire started early (on page one, in fact) but the murder that created the mystery only occurred very late in the story. Mostly this was fine but the reader had to go through a remarkably large portion of this title before the murder even happened. The result was that I spent much of Bimbos wondering where this story was going and how long it would take to get there. Still, this "aimless voyage" part of the book was a good deal of fun.

The action in Bimbos takes place over the course of a weekend at a second rate science fiction/fantasy convention held in a second rate hotel. At least I hope it's meant to be a second rate convention. I've been to any number of trade shows in my life and know enough to do some comparing. I would hate to think that this convention is even close to the best that the science fiction/fantasy world can offer.

It may be cruel to laugh and poke fun at our fellow human beings but there is a cruel streak in us humans, isn't there? And who can be easier to poke fun at than a collection of losers and misfits who don't just enjoy science fiction or fantasy but actually seem to think that it is more important than reality (I hope they're not correct) and put their real lives on hold while they focus on perfecting their not-real lives.

So for much of this book the reader is engaged in the cheap thrill of watching the author shoot fish in a barrel. Even a cheap thrill is still a thrill after all - one that most of us are quite willling to live down to if the target of our laughter is appropriately selected.

Done to excess, of course, satire can be little more than a sneering exercise in intellectual sadism and, in becomming so, it can lose a lot of its credibility. Sharyn McCrumb shows the good sense avoid this sort of excess. The fun she pokes at the more extreme convention attendees is made that much more believable by her sympathetic portrayal of a good many other characters - people who can enjoy a game without confusing the game with reality. It is further helped by the author's writing which is always good and, often, sparkles.

As for the murder mystery it's as clever as it needs to be and ties in nicely with the overall satirical theme of the book.

So what about the book? What happened and who did it happen to?

So you noticed that I haven't actually told you anything significant about the characters or goings on in Bimbos, have I? I won't either. Why spoil the fun of discovery? So, for the particulars, you'll have to read Bimbos of the Death Sun, which I would heartily recommend. It's not Proust (who I've never read and probably never will) but it is a fun read.

Why the url and title?

In my first post I made the following (remarkably tedious) promise, "As for why this blog has the title and url I've given it, that's a subject for a future posting."

Sorry but I guess a promise is a promise. Here goes.

About the url (http://ihopemomapproves.blogspot.com/) there's not much to explain since it is at least as obvious as your typical vanity license plate. Mom, being the exact ideal of what a good (great!) mom should be (I'm probably saying something about myself here.) enjoys a good deal of prestige in my eyes and in the eyes of my family. I've been known to cross her but, mostly, I prefer that she approve of things. So why not hard wire that preference into the fabric of this blog?

The title, Joe Says, may also seem obvious. Well, ha! It's not. Like the url, it does involve Mom, though.

I've always liked to think of myself as an only child, a habit my five younger brothers and sisters, for some reason, have been known to find annoying. Too bad. After all, the historical record is clear on this subject. There actually was a gloroius year and a half period when I was a bona fide only child and that's more than any of my siblings can say (Please don't tell any of them I wrote this.).

However, I wasn't the only person in the house who was impressed by my special status as first among equals. Apparently, at some level, Mom too seemed to realize that any right thinking person would also be impressed. So, unknown to me, when Mom wanted to emphasize a point to one or another errant brother or sister of mine, she would often preface her remarks with the phrase, "Joe says."

It was decades before I discovered this and, even when I did, I can't say that I found it annoying. For some reason, though, my brothers and sisters did.

Maybe that's why when a time came that rest of the brood decided to christen one of our number as "the good son," they didn't ask Mom what, "Joe Says" about who would be the most suitable candidate. Instead, they did an end run around both of us and selected one of my younger brothers for the honor.

I don't mind, though. Adolescent rebellion is just a fact of life and I can live with it. For sure, merit can't have had anything to do with their decision.

So, getting back to this blog, events made it impossible for me to call it, The Good Son Says. Joe Says works for me, though, and ihopemomapproves.

Why am I doing this?

There are people who start a blog to give the world an opportunity to bask in the glow of their opinions. That's not why I'm doing this.

I do, of course, have my own ideas about things but nobody really has a compelling need to hear them. Only a small number of people are deeply troubled when they find that the scope of their opinions exceeds the boundaries of their expertise. I doubt that I'm any exception to this general rule.

So why am I writing? It's definitely not so that I can add one more shrill voice to what passes for public discourse in this day and age. Actually, I'm writing for work reasons. I want to learn more about creating blogs and since you learn best by doing (an opinion!) I'm creating this one. Still, I'll try not to waste the time of anybody who who takes the trouble to read it.

It's not false modesty, of course, to say that I anticipate the tiniest reading audience imaginable. My only reader, in fact, may end up being some scholarly drudge in a future era who uses this blog as source material for his PhD dissertation on the lives of obscure people at the dawn of the Internet era. That's the breaks, I guess.

As for what I'm planning to write about, I intend to focus most of my attention on the books that I read, on the (mostly home) projects I'm involved in and on my assorted hobbies and (very limited) travels. I'll do my best to address larger issues only if they occur within eyeball range of wherever I happen to be sitting at the time they happen. In other words, I will do my best to focus my attention only on those areas where I can claim to write with some small amount of authority.

As for why this blog has the title and url I've given it, that's a subject for a future posting.