I’m heading off to Readercon for the weekend, the best convention by far on the East coast.  If anyone happens to be in the greater Boston area this weekend and has some free time I highly recommend it.  This convention has the best ratio of pros to attendees of any con I know of, and the level of the discourse (one panel this year is entitled Consciousness, Free Will, Evolution, and Memory) is just lightyears beyond what you’d experience elsewhere.

Oh and since the guests this year are Jonathan Lethem and James Patrick Kelly (along with Stanislaw Lem as the ghost of honor) this is the must attend con this year.  I’ll be back on Monday.

The Eternals was the book that marked Jack Kirby’s return to Marvel comics after his all to brief stint working for the competition (a period during which he produced his best work).  The story concerns what went on to become the origins of the Marvel universe (but which was originally intended to be separte from the publisher’s other books).  In brief the Space Gods known as the Celestials are responsible for evolving mankind from the apes, and also created two other species, the Eternals and the Deviants, at the same time.  Now the Celestials have returned to judge their work and the three species of man spend the series figuring out how to respond to their trial.

I have very mixed feelings about this book.  In one regard it’s one of Kirby’s most well written titles.  Most of the over the top concepts he’s known for have been scaled back in order to focus more on the characters, who are amongst Kirby’s strongest.  But on the other hand, those same larger than life bursts of creativity are what worked best in many of his other books.  I also have trouble with the similiarity to Kirby’s New Gods work over at DC.  The concept of Gods from space is nearly the same, but the approach here is different (the New Gods was more about the creation of the mythology while the Eternals focuses on the effects of mythology instead).

I can’t help but feel the Kirby is simply recycling ideas from his older books here.  But the additional maturity that is present in the writing helps alleviate my reservations somewhat.  And as always with Kirby, the art is wonderful, and this edition does a very nice job on the reproduction.  So I guess this is a must for Kirby fans, but if you’re new to him you should probably stick to the DC books and his earlier Marvel runs on Thor and the Fantastic Four.

One of my main goals as a contributor to the open shelves classification project seems to be succeeding.  I like the idea of having a classification system that ignores format completely, making it possible for individual libraries to treat their collections however they wish (ex. put dvd in front of the call #) and creating a system that will not have problems with future formats.  At most I think the project should come up with some best practices incorporating various item types, but nothing should be mandated.

I also think the borderline formats (graphic novels, musical scores) should be treated this way.  Right now in my own library we have a system (that predates me), which I absolutely hate.  For scores we use an entirely different classification system that only one person in the building understands (we have a music turned reference librarian).  For graphic novels we put them all into the single call # for comics, irregardless of content, effectively creating a special collection.  But I always get annoyed when a non-fiction comic gets thrown into the middle of the superhero books.

How do others handle these sorts of things?  And what would you do differently if given a free hand?

The conversation revolving around the Open Shelves Classification project has been going for less than a week and it’s already become the best discussion on the cataloging I’ve experienced since I was in school.  But I must say my favorite piece of the conversation was when Tim Spalding brought up why he decided to start the project via the LibraryThing forum, “the people on AUTOCAT were dragging me over the coals for letting ignorant “users” do cataloging”.

Granted this has been a hugely contentious issue across the field, with many fearing the death of authority control if the system is opened up, or at least a severe drop in the quality of the work being done.  But what they keep forgetting is that whatever work we do is meant to be user driven, and thus the users must be allowed to have some input on the development of the system we use.  One of the many great things about the LibraryThing project is that Tim is actively campaigning for non-librarians to get involved with the process, and indeed when he asked for a few ringleaders to step forward the first responders were all non-catalogers, including a few non-librarians even.  So now I’m even more excited about the project.

For part two of my pre-readercon reading list it’s second guest of honor, Jonathan Lethem’s novella This Shape We’re In.  To be upfront about my review, I am biased when it comes to Lethem.  He’s probably my favorite modern author, in large part because his two primary influences, Philip K. Dick and Steve Gerber are the same writers I grew up devouring.  He’s also the author of my favorite book of the last decade, Motherless Brooklyn.

So, with that little disclaimer out of the way, on to the review.  This Shape We’re In is a very odd and incredibly tightly written story.  It focuses on two characters searching for one of their sons who has run away to join a cult, as well as the purpose of their lives, oh and lest I forget the purpose of their environment as well.  The environment in question, the shape, is a body that may or may not be human.  It could also be a generational ship, a fallout shelter, or possibly a trojan horse.

The brilliance of the story comes from the craft on display.  For nearly any other writer a story this ambitious would form a novel.  For Lethem, the tale encompases a total of 55 pages and feels like it’s exactly the length it ought to be.  This is world building of the first order, there is no extraneous exposition (or really any exposition at all for that matter), yet the environment feels fully realized.

This story (if you can still find a copy) makes a great introduction to Lethem’s work, very highly recommended.

The last few years have been a particularly good time to be a fan of hard s.f.  The latest crop of writers have been the strongest to hit the scene since the Golden Age, and the most prolific of these writers by far is Charles Stross.

Stross’ early works put him at the forefront of Singularity (the rapture of the geeks) stories and set him apart as a writer of incredible ambition.  Accelerando in particular was a novel with some lofty goals, which was doomed to failure.  The story is a generational saga that begins in a future that is at the outer reaches of human comprehension and then leaps forward from there, making it nearly impossible to read although worth the effort of trying.

His more recent novels have been far more controlled, and all the better for it.  Glasshouse, which was up for the Hugo last year but lost to Rainbow’s End, was one of the most enjoyable and imaginative reads I’ve encountered in years, combining the Singularity with Desperate Housewives and game theory.

In addition, Stross is also notable in that his stories tend to be focused largely on the economic aspects of the worlds he creates.  He’s not unique in this regard (Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom springs to mind), but he may be the first major s.f. writer to make it such a reoccuring theme of nearly all his novels.  Besides the economics 2.0 of Accelerando he’s also written of a bank heist in a virtual world (Halting State) and an entire series on Mercantilism (The Merchant Princes), all of which are well worth reading.

Stross has become a key part of any modern s.f. collection, and he’s only getting better.

With Readercon only a week away it’s time for some catch up reading.  First up, guest of honor, James Patrick Kelly’s first short story collection, Think Like A Dinosaur.  After finishing it the first thought I had was that I was ashamed it took me so long to get around to reading it.  This is a phenominal collection that does a great job of showcasing Kelly’s range as a writer.

The highlight of the collection came as little surprise to me given its hype.  The title story, which won the Hugo in 1995, is a gutwrenching tribute to the classic story, the Cold Equations.  But what did surprise me is that nearly the entire collection was written at the same level.  The dystopias of Pogrom, Mr. Boy and Rat had moments every bit as strong and the characterization didn’t falter in a single tale.  Although if I have to single out another story it has to be the First Law of Thermodynamics, which best illustrates the humanism Kelly is known for (according to Wikipedia at least).

I’ll definitely be hunting for Kelly’s other collections at the con next week.

Well the Senate has finally decided that the American people are not even entitled to the illusion of privacy anymore.  I know this was the expected result but it still kills me that our government would so overwhelmingly throw out the 4th amendment and show this level of disrespect for the judiciary.

So, how exactly does one go about declaring 2/3rds of the Government unamerican?

I just have to point out the discussion that has begun over in the librarything forums.  Head honcho Tim Spalding has proposed the creation of a new ground up designed classification system to be created by the users of librarything.  The forum was just created two days ago and there are already 145 members.

I have high hopes that something good will come from the effort that is already being invested in this project.  But even if it doesn’t ultimately work out, the discussion it has already generated is a worth while endevour of its own.  But I really hope this works.  Best of luck to everyone involved.

The Fitchburg public library is going through one of the toughest budget crisises in recent memory.  The city is suffering a nearly $5 million defecit this year, and the Mayor is unconvinced that the library is a core service for the city.  Thus this year’s budget negotiations may result in as much as a %75 cut to the library, and I’ve heared reports they will have to reduce their staff and their hours by as much as 2/3rds and may not be able to purchase any new materials for the next year.

And then there is the issue of state certification, which in Massachusetts requires (for a city the size of Fitchburg) certain budgetary standards and a director with an M.L.S.  Meeting these requirements opens up grant opportunities and allows you membership in the statewide library systems.  Fitchburg is not going to make the cut this year, becoming the largest community in the state unable to do so, and to judge from some members of the community they don’t mind.

I really want to be appalled by this, but I can’t say I’m terribly surprised, and judging by the post I just linked to I don’t think there are many pro library advocates in the city.  I’m also curious how much of the thinking revolves around the fact that the neighboring city of Leominster just opened up a brand new library.  I really want to see the shock in Fitchburg when patrons try to go over there to check out books and get turned away because of their uncertified status.  I’ll be keeping an eye on this whole situation.