ComingSoon.net have posted some images of the posters for the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie. I'm not planning to see the movie, but I think these posters are fascinating ! The poster above features Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge, the Hogwarts High Inquisitor and the tagline in the top corner reads "Dissent will not be tolerated".
Next Monday will be a public holiday here and - as usual - the fine weather we've been enjoying is set to change. It's already cloudy this morning, so I bring you Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem:
The Cloud
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardors of rest and of love,
And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of Heaven above,
With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,
As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.
I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,--
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
While the moist Earth was laughing below.
I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
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Sorry Elaine, no Shakespeare and no mention of "Doctor Who" this week...
Elaine Magliaro of the Wild Rose Reader Blog has challenged me to write an Ode to "Doctor Who". My poetry writing skills are even more rusty than my fiction-writing ones were about 3.5 months ago, so it's going to take some time for me to come up with a poetic response to her challenge. In the meantime, however, I have a prose Ode for you. You see, I belong to several online discussion forums and on one of them just lately there's been an awful lot of criticism for "Doctor Who", which has been bugging me, so today I initiated a conversation about why I love "Doctor Who". Here's what I wrote:
I love the concept of a two-hearted renegade alien who travels through Time and Space in a blue box that's bigger on the inside than the outside, and is armed only with a Sonic Screwdriver - not a sword, or a lightsabre, or a sonic blaster, but a sonic screwdriver...
I love the fact that the Doctor is largely peace-loving and a genius who loves humanity in spite of our flaws, who thinks we're worth fighting for and dying for...
I love the fact that the monsters aren't always the big green slavering creatures that are coming out of the spaceships, sometimes they're the guy or the woman in a business suit...
I know very well that it's got dodgy science, that it's frequently bonkers and that, often enough, it's got plotholes you could drive a Sherman Tank through, but I find the philosophy of the show overall very hopeful and encouraging...
And yes, David Tennant's totally gorgeous, but I'll still be watching when he's gone on to other things, just the same as I'm trying to watch as many of the Classic Who serials as I can... The Whoniverse is my happy home...
The third of Anthony Horowitz's "Power of Five" series, Nightrise
Fourteen-year-old twins Scott and Jamie Tyler are foundlings with no sense of who they are or where they come from; all they know is that they have a unique and extraordinary power, the gift of telepathy, which they put to the test every night in front of a Reno theatre audience as an act in "The Circus of the Mind". When Scott is kidnapped by the sinister Nightrise Corporation, the boys' powers are tested to their limits and beyond. Jamie goes hunting for his twin and finds himself hurtled back into the past and embroiled in a ferocious battle unlike any other. Jamie find himself involved in an epic struggle between the forces of good (the Five) and the forces of evil, the Old Ones. And for the first time in this series, the Five are united in their purpose and therefore can confront the malevolence head-on as they prepare themselves for a struggle for supremacy with the Old Ones, but with the odds stacked heavily against them.
It's interesting that this book focuses almost exclusively on Jamie and Scott, unlike the first two (Raven's Gate
Nightrise is also available as an Audiobook
Linda Buckley Archer's wonderful novel Gideon the Cutpurse
Also on this year's shortlist of seven are A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd, edited by David Fickling, and Beast by Ally Kennen, edited by Marion Lloyd; the judges include Frances Hardinge, who won the award last year for Fly By Night.
The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on Thursday, 28th June in London.
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The sequel to Gideon, The Tar Man
The Doctor: Oi! Follow that coach!
Coach Driver: I'm afraid I can't do that sir!
The Doctor: And why's that?
Dickens: I'll tell you why not; I'll give you a very good reason why not: because this is my coach!
The Doctor: [Exasperated] Well, get in then!
Coach Driver: Is everything in order, Mr Dickens?
Dickens: No, everything is not.
The Doctor: What did he say?
Dickens: Let me say this first: I'm not a man with a sense of humour, and I-
The Doctor: Dickens?
Dickens: Yes?
The Doctor: Charles Dickens?
Dickens: Yes.
The Doctor: The Charles Dickens?
Coach Driver: Should I remove the gentleman, sir?
The Doctor: Charles Dickens! You're brilliant, you are! Completely one-hundred percent brilliant! I've read them all! Great Expectations, Oliver Twist... What's the other one, the one with the ghosts?
Dickens: A Christmas Carol?
The Doctor: No no no, the one with the trains... The Signalman, that's it! Terrifying! Best short story ever written! You're a genius!
Coach Driver: Do you want me to get rid of him, sir?
Dickens: [Flattered] No, I think he can stay.
("The Unquiet Dead", Season 1 New Doctor Who)
The fourth Scholar's Blog Book Discussion has kicked off over on the Scholar's Blog Spoiler Zone. If you've read Lady Friday please free to hop over there and join in the conversation...
Do you have a theory (could it be bunnies? *) ? If so, I invite you to pop over to the Scholar's Blog Spoiler Zone where I've posted a list of my predictions. Feel free to come and tell me that I've got the wrong end of the stick or to ask if I've been at the Butterbeer!
(* A Buffy the Vampire Slayer joke - I can never think of the phrase "I have a theory" without immediately thinking of Anya's song in "Once More, With Feeling"...)
A quick reminder that the 14th Carnival of Children's Literature will be held over at Chicken Spaghetti on Monday 21 May 21st and the deadline for submissions is Thursday 17 May. Susan's chosen the theme of "Fiesta! A Multicultural Celebration". She says The theme is for fun; I love a good fiesta. If you have a book-related post on another subject, that's fine, too. (No web-based original fiction, please. That's another carnival altogether.). If you want to participate, check out Susan's own post on the subject, and if you've forgotten (or don't know) what a Carnival of Children's Literature is, then check out Susan's helpful explanation from March.
The US Sci Fi Channel has announced that it wil begin screening the third season of "Doctor Who" at 21:00 pm on Friday 6th July 2007, just a couple of weeks after season 3 finishes airing in the UK. New Companion, Martha Jones is going to blow your socks off !
It was Shakespeare's birthday on April 23, so I've been on a bit of a Shakespeare buzz again this week and I offer you the following (still on the theme of Time) from my favourite play by Shakespeare:
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numbering clock:
My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans
Show minutes, times, and hours.
King Richard in Richard II.
I particularly love the first two lines of this sonnet:
Sonnet 30
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.
... Nithreus. Everyone seems to be doing this at the moment (well everyone who's a fan of "His Dark Materials"), and I couldn't resist joining in. You can find out your Daemon via the Golden Compass movie website.
Mine isn't settled yet, so if you want to check whether you agree with how I see myself, feel free to comment on whether or not you agree via the link in the graphic. It won't settle for 12 days.
Marcus Sedgwick's new YA book, Blood Red, Snow White
Written with all Sedgwick's usual Gothic style and featuring some cleverly created bridges between history, biography and fairy tales, Blood Red, Snow White is a multi-layered novel that is sure to prove a best-seller. This book is out in July and was received for review from Waterstones.com.
Just a quick reminder that discussion of the next book, Garth Nix's Lady Friday
Rose: But, it's like... think about it, though. Christmas. 1860. Happens once. Just once, and it's gone. It's finished. It'll never happen again. Except for you. [Pause] You can go back and see days that are dead and gone and a hundred thousand sunsets ago... no wonder you never stay still...
The Doctor: Not a bad life.
Rose: Better with two.
("The Unquiet Dead", Season 1 New Doctor Who)
Kai Meyer's The Wave Runners
14 year old Jolly is a pirate (and is named after the pirate flag, the Jolly Roger). She was bought in a slave market as a young child and has been brought up by the dashing pirate Captain Bannon. During her years aboard the Maid Maddy she has learnt many of the necessary pirating skills that she needs to survive, but her greatest talent is one she has had all her life: Jolly is a polliwiggle, someone who can literally walk on water. She believes that she's the last of her kind still alive. When the crew of the Maid Maddy are ambushed and everyone else is killed she starts to wonder if the real target of the attack was herself, rather than Captain Bannon and his crew. She manages to escape from her ship and is washed up, nearly dead, onto a small island where she is rescued by a young boy named Munk who, it turns out, is also a polliwiggle. However, in spite of their remote location someone discovers the truth about the pair. After Munk's parents are murdered by an entity called the Acherus, the two polliwiggles decide to try to discover the identity of whoever is behind the attacks. They soon find themselves in the middle of a swashbuckling adventure where they meet up with a number of unusual characters, including the mysterious Ghost Trader.
I enjoyed this story. Jolly and Munk are interesting characters, as is the explanation for their ability to walk on water. The tale is set in the 17th century - but I suspect it's an alternate universe to ours (though I confess I've not found the time, yet, to check out that theory). The Ghost Trader is also a fascinatingly mysterious character - I hope we'll learn a bit more about him in the later books.
This story was originally written in German but it's been beautifully translated into English and manages to maintain a sense of adventure and excitement throughout the story. Kai Meyer has an English website here. This book was received for review from the publisher, Egmont, and it's out in May. It's also available from Amazon.com, but in the US it is called Pirate's Curse (The Wave Walkers)
I've posted my fourth "Doctor Who" novella over my Who Fiction Blog today. This is the one that burned in my brain for nearly two weeks whilst I finished writing the third tale, and as a consequence I was able to write the entire first draft over the four day Easter weekend. Roughly 22000 words in four days - I've never written so much, so fast before...
Jen Robinson, over at Jen Robinson's Book Page, has posted the 13th Carnival of Children's Literature. I missed this last night - Jen caught me sleeping ! Do go over and take a look at the many and varied posts that Jen has gathered up - but be warned, it'll take some time to get through them all.
If you're new to Blogging and are wondering what is a Carnival of Children's Literature, please check out this helpful post from Susan Thomsen at Chicken Spaghetti. Susan will be hosting the next Carnival on Monday 21 May and the deadline for submission is Thursday 17 May.
I've just posted a review of Malcolm Rose's Circle of Nightmares over on the Scholar's Blog Spoiler Zone.
I won't be posting a review of Doctor Who's Season 3 episode 4, "Daleks In Manhattan" during next week, as it's the first of a two-parter (written by Helen Raynor - the first woman to write for New Who), so expect both "Daleks In Manhattan" and "Evolution of the Daleks" to be reviewed together the week after next.
Talking of the Daleks, users of the BBC Doctor Who website were recently polled to discover the scariest monsters in the Whoniverse - and the Daleks were voted number 1 (to my surprise since I find the Cybermen far more chilling!)
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In other news, I've been lucky enough to receive an ARC of Marcus Sedgwick's new YA book, Blood Red, Snow White
