Potok

So with all the writing I was supposed to do this weekend here is what I have accomplished:

1. Drew a picture of Potok:
2. ...
   

Yeah, not much else to say.

(Potok is from a "webcomic" called Order of Tales. If you don't know what Order of Tales is, go read Rice Boy instead.)

I haven't left bed yet

But I did finish the Fall of Endymion. I guess I will get my annoyances with these books out of the way first.

1. Raft and kayak travel is too fast in this series. A canoe or kayak is rarely faster than walking speed plus current speed, while a raft is locked to the speed of the current; a river like the Mississippi rarely exceeds three miles per hour. Still, they sometimes travel more than 100 miles in a day. I wonder if Simmons is conflating experience from a short canoe trip with a long motorboat trip. I did enjoy these elements but I felt they were too short.
2. Way too much retconning. Simmons denies most of the major revelations of the Hyperion books, and the Rise of Endymion even ignores things in Endymion. There is a very humorous scene at the beginning of Endymion where one character makes a list of ludicrous demands of the hero, in such a way that you know these things are meant to be accomplished by the end of the series. However, at least one of these demands is never accomplished, nor mentioned again by either character, although there were at least good opportunities to bring it up.
3. The characters in Hyperion sparkle with rivalries, which they mostly resolve by the Fall of Hyperion. The inter-character conflict is not as compelling in Endymion. The protagonists are simply too nice and the antagonists have no apparent motive for the political intrigues. I wasn't given any reason to care which of the multiple bad factions came out on top, and I wasn't even sure why the baddies cared. If you are lusting for power it is presumably for love or hate or at least change, but none of the characters seemed to have significant plans for how to use the power they plotted for.
4. Everyone blinked. A lot. I started to think I was in the land of Tink Tonk.

My impression of this series overall is that Hyperion is a very strong, character-driven work. The Fall of Hyperion is a satisfying conclusion. Endymion and the Rise of Endymion have amazing settings which are generally let down by the plot and characters.

I guess I should get up now and start on my own poor writing.

UPDATE: I forgot the most important thing, which is while browsing Dan Simmons website I ran across a link to this.

It's Friday

It's Friday. That seems like a good reason not to post, doesn't it?

Well, no. At the little floating adventure we are all about quality content every day, including weekends and bank holidays.

However, in this coming week I need to write a four page non-fiction story to be read by about five people, and a longer story to be read in my fiction class by everyone. Even the people whose stories I no doubt unfairly ravaged in my reviews.

I have some other things to accomplish in this time period as well, such as finding a late Christmas present for my sister and preventing zombie invasions.

All of which is to say that I may or may not post something substantive today, and if I do, it is likely to be later tonight.

That is just the way things go in the high-stakes world of not really having a job but posting on multiple blogs!