Discworld
Narnia
Roald Dahl
Masters of Rome
Mary Renault
Robot Visions
C J Cherryh
Knowledge equals power...
The string was important. After a while the Librarian stopped. He concentrated all his powers of librarianship.
Power equals energy...
People were stupid, sometimes. They thought the Library was a dangerous place because of all the magical books, which was true enough, but what made it really one of the most dangerous places there could ever be was the simple fact that it was a library.
Energy equals matter...
He swung into an avenue of shelving that was apparently a few feet long and walked along it briskly for half an hour.
Matter equals mass.
And mass distorts space. It distorts it into polyfractal L-space.
So, while the Dewey system has its fine points, when you're setting out to look something up in the multidimensional folds of L-space what you really need is a ball of string.
I love quantum that is easily digestible (of course). Like, because I've always been such a bookworm, I love Terry Pratchett's L-space theory: libraries are able to bend space and time because knowledge is power, and lots of books together disrupt the fabric of reality. All libraries are somehow connected; if you can enter the spaces between the books, on the invisible shelves between the libraries, you can reach any library that ever existed, at any time. I wouldn't mind pitching up in Alexandria's before the stylites burned it down ;). Terry Pratchett's always on about the Trousers of Time - that if you make a wrong choice, you can go hurtling down the wrong leg, and end up in the wrong future or something. Which is just quantum dressed up... in trousers. Er. Whatever.
The air became very still, so still that you could almost hear the slow fall of dust. The Librarian swung on his knuckles between the endless bookshelves. The dome of the Library was still overhead but then, it always was.
It seemed quite logical to the Librarian that, since there were aisles where the shelves were on the outside, then there should be other aisles in the space between the books themselves, created out of quantum ripples by the sheer weight of words. There were certainly some odd sounds coming from the other side of some shelving, and the Librarian knew that if he gently pulled out a book or two he would be peeking into different libraries under different skies.Books bend space and time. One reason the owners of those aforesaid little rambling, poky second-hand bookshops always seem slightly unearthly is that many of them really are, having strayed into this world after taking a wrong turning in their own bookshops in worlds where it is considered commendable business practice to wear carpet slippers all the time and open your shop only when you feel like it. You stray into L-space at your peril.
Very senior librarians, however, once they have proved themselves worthy by performing some valiant act of librarianship, are accepted into a secret order and are taught the raw arts of survival beyond the Shelves We Know. The Librarian was highly skilled in all of them, but what he was attempting now wouldn't just get him thrown out of the Order but probably out of life itself.
All libraries everywhere are connected in L-space. All libraries. Everywhere. And the Librarian, navigating by booksign carved on shelves by past explorers, navigating by smell, navigating even by the siren whisperings of nostalgia, was heading purposely for one very special one.
There was one consolation. If he got it wrong, he'd never know it.
I also can't help liking the Librarian, who is in fact an Orang-utan who only says "Ooook!" or maybe "Eeeek!" if someone tries to write in a book, or won't hand over the banana. He figures he prefers being an ape, but loses his temper and bangs people's heads on the floor if he gets referred to as a monkey. I don't blame him really. He also plays the pipe-organ rather well, if the music is scored for whoopee cushion, tornado and squashed rabbits noises (there are some strange stops on most discworld organs, and some only say " ? "). It's having four hands, technically, that really helps. And he can climb to those high shelves like anything.
The Librarian swung on. It was slow progress, because there were things he wasn't keen on meeting. Creatures evolve to fill every niche in the environment, and some of those in the dusty immensity of L-space were best avoided. They were much more unusual than ordinary unusual creatures.
Usually he could forewarn himself by keeping an eye on the kickstool crabs that grazed harmlessly on the dust. When they were spooked, it was time to hide. Several times he had to flatten himself against the shelves as a thesaurus thundered by. He waited patiently as a herd of Critters crawled past, grazing on the contents of the choicer books and leaving behind them piles of small slim volumes of literary criticism. And there were other things, things which he hurried away from and tried not to look hard at...
And you had to avoid cliches at all costs.
I could go on about Terry Pratchett for ages; he's so much fun to read, and he also throws in serious issues. Like the tension between reality and stories (and how reality doesn't pan out quite the same way); the nature of belief; and the way people blindly follow kings and heroes. I would have kicked Lion-o out years ago, for example, because I too am frankly annoyed by pretty people with no brains who think they can rule the world. (Like beauty queens and George Dubya. Although George W Bush isn't that pretty, just stupid...). I remember that this manifested out of my subconscious when I was a child in the frequent hanging of my brother's "he-man" toys - because anyone that strong and pretty with teeth that go *ting* deserves to die - and the throwing of Barbie into volcanoes. Not real volcanoes, but a reasonable facsimile consisting of a large washbasket full of socks. I had to fill in the *blup* noises myself. Sometimes perfect Barbie's perfect horse would trample her to death, just for variation. The My-little-Ponies would then hold a celebratory tea-party and discuss their plan to take over the world.
The volcano idea came from an old Tarzan book of my father's (pre-Disney, fortunately), wherein some nasty queen is always chucking pretty girls and other people into a volcano because she's paranoid, envious AND schizophrenic. Pers'nally, I sympathised with her rather than with Mr Underpants-on-head. She didn't spew out Victorian quasi-morality on the responsibility of ruling wisely, in-between stabbing innocent hungry lions, leopards and panthers - which you don't get in Africa, actually - to death and then yodelling over their dead bodies. No wonder so many beautiful cat species are endangered....>:(
I suppose everybody at some point has taken their frustrations out on the
more harmless little plastic denizens of their toy cupboard. I
admit that the more megalomaniac and Macchiavellian My Little Ponies
were occasionally banished out of Narnia (my room) to Archenland
(my parents' room) or worse, the great desert country of evil Calormen
(my brother's room, of course.) I still love the tales of Narnia,
especially "The Voyage of the
Dawn Treader", a book about sailing to the edge of the world and
then over it towards Aslan's country - Narnia being on a flat world,
with heaven in easy reach, and worlds that are round "like an
orange" being of endless fascination to Narnian philosophers and
kings. There is a beautiful medieval quality to the whole series,
like a millefleurs tapestry, with unicorns, stars in human form,
dragons to slay and maidens to kiss and evil enchantments to break.
And great quests. You can't have mediaeval themes in a book without
a *quest*. Slay serpent, save Narnia, reach home, marry princess,
enjoy banquet. Like Star Wars without the
androids {{sighs}}. Terry Pratchett might hate the concept, but
there is a lot to be said about fantasy making life a better
place. Tolkein was firmly of this persuasion; C.S. Lewis
angered him by referring to myths as untruths, "though breathed through silver".
Books I have loved...
The Tales of Narnia (C.S. Lewis)
The Masters of Rome series (Colleen McCullough)
An Introduction to the Discworld series (Terry Pratchett)
The Chocolate Factory, and other stories... (Roald Dahl)
The Merchanter Universe, and the Rider books. (C.J. Cherryh)
Robot Visions (Isaac Asimov)
All quotations taken from Guards! Guards! Terry Pratchett (copyright Terry and Lyn Pratchett, 1989), City Watch Trilogy omnibus (1999), Victor Gollancz Ltd, London [Ps 130-1, 134, 149-150].
Everthing else, copyright *eminentfreak* 2004, South Africa. Don't steal my work and I won't steal yours. Although if you cite me after you quote me, it counts as research. Funny old world we live in.
One more thing: I'm one of the few people on earth who don't believe in evolution, simply because Darwin's theory has been falsified so many times that it is no longer viable... Therefore, it is an ideology that cannot be demonstrably proven. Creationism is also an ideology that cannot be proven; so you either believe in God, or in matter. "In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded" says Terry. Pretty darn accurate. And while Darwin thought that nothing could accidentally turn itself into something, on the basis that stuff now exists, I would say: prove it then. I think it's far easier, in the long term, to believe Someone spoke it into being. Quite fascinating. Oh well, enough junk for one semester...
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