Monday, September 10, 2007

Lit Critters Last September 8, 2007

I was supposed to manage a photo shoot last Saturday but the talent backed out at the last minute. I spent the time wandering around Serendra and it never ceases to amaze me how ambiance can make a difference.

While browsing through the books of Madeleine L'Engle, I find out from Dean that the author has died. One of the more mainstream SF works has been A Wrinkle in Time and as Dean puts it, it's a huge tragedy whenever an author dies for that means no more new stories are told. The metaphor I associate with that loss is the demise of a god. Writers are, in many ways, creators that breathe life into paper. (But I'll be honest. News of her death affects people like Zarah and Kyu more. The other tragedy here is that I haven't yet read any of the author's work. Perhaps now is a good time to start.)

The Lit Critters
discussed three stories last Saturday: Door 59 by F.H. Batacan, The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chiang, and Private Detective Molly by AB Goelman. I was so engrossed with Dean's introduction that I forgot to turn on the tape recorder. The first story we tackled was The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate and the only time I managed to hit "record" was when Dean asked me my opinions of the story (luckily for you and perhaps unfortunately for me, I was the first person he called). Here's a recording of the last Lit Crit session which is nearly two hours long (51 MB). The sound quality isn't the best so you might want to increase the volume of your speakers. Listening to a recording however is no dialogue so join the mailing list and participate in the discussion (and hopefully attend the next Lit Crit session).

EDIT: Fixed the mp3 link.

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