(no subject)

Woke up coughing, then got a sudden urge to throw up. Ugh! Barely made it to the loo in time.

Theories: 1) the throw-up spasm was really a coughing spasm, because I'd forgotten to take my medicine because it was the first cold night after a couple of hot days
2) it was something I ate -- except that I didn't feel queasy, just spasm-y.

And here I was trying to catch up on my sleep. (sigh)

Thoughtful Stuff

Of course now when I have no time, I have to get all musing...

Wouldn't it be interesting to invent a fantasy universe in which there were two (or perhaps three) kinds of magic, which bear a similar resemblance to each other as proceedural programming, functional programming (and perhaps, object-oriented programming). In other words, they go about things differently, require a different way of thinking, and each one has a particular kind of problem that it is best at solving. The question is, what sorts of magics would they be?
Perhaps one is about being and another is about doing. Or perhaps naming rather than being. And the doing style is cruder, but easier to understand, so more people use it.

While reading "The Riddle-Master of Hed" today, one of the themes struck me: that in order for Morgan to be given a new name, his old one had to be taken away from him first. He was driven into his destiny by losing everything he had.

Another cool thing about that trilogy is that, looking back at it as a whole, when one actually knows what it was all about, you have quite an unusual fantasy plot. It's a twist on the "hidden heir" idea, because rather than having a Dark Lord to fight that everyone knows about, you have a hidden enemy and a hidden good guy who's desperately waiting for his heir to come along because it's all that he can do to keep the enemy in check -- and in the meanwhile it's complicated by a minor bad guy whom the good guy can't act against because it would risk his long-term strategy against the real enemy. I can just see Avon being caught in that kind of situation, and him being just as mercilessly pragmatic as Deth had to be.

Of course, it isn't just the plot that makes this trilogy cool; it has a depth of tapestry to it, painted with vivid colours, and all the riddles that keep on being told, which give it both a depth of history and a feel of myth. And also how the different lands, while they may evoke this and that, are not just copies of various ancient cultures (you know, the Japanesey ones, the medieval ones, the Arabian ones, the Roman ones, the Celtic ones...). And it's also good because it isn't deadly serious all the time. Well, the first book anyway. I can't remember if the later books have lighter bits, cuz I haven't got up to them yet in this re-read.

I must to bed, to rest my head, for I must away, ere break of day, to find our long-forgotten LotR sites.