Assorted Literature

August 31, 2005 · Posted in General, Reviews · Comment 

The Hellboy

I recently moved into a new flat with Hodgestar. As we started unpacking all our stuff on the other side, I became convinced that my copy of Weird Tales Vol. 2 had gone missing – a cursory web search confirmed that such a graphic novel existed, and I was sure that I had all of the Hellboy trade paperbacks published to date. I worried; I berated Hodgestar for his Zen packing technique, especially after discovering some Judge Dredd books all by themselves at the bottom of boxes otherwise filled with completely unrelated stuff; I ransacked all the still-packed boxes messily, repeatedly and with increased irrational obsession (think The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl, fellow Bradbury fans).

Then, feeling a twinge of doubt, and aware that I hadn’t actually checked my collection against a list, and that my recollection of what short stories came from which book was rather blurry, I looked for sample pages of Weird Tales Vol. 2 on the web, and having decided that I had never seen any of them before in my life came to the conclusion that I had never actually owned this book. So I ordered it, and it arrived about a week ago, and it was good.

The Confusion

This is volume two of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, which I am patiently collecting in softcover. It is as good as the first – full of intricate detail, little throw-away references and in-jokes and convoluted plots. Now I have to wait a few more months until System of the World is out in softcover. Woe.

The Fanfic

On Monday night I hurt myself laughing. Minerva McTabby has previously put up collections of awful Harry Potter fanfic summaries on her LiveJournal, and these are the Greatest Hits from all prior posts. They are unintentionally hilarious for various reasons – appalling spelling and grammar, awful fanfic cliches, complete lack of writing talent or all of the above.

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Review: The Island

August 24, 2005 · Posted in Reviews · Comment 

I mostly enjoyed The Island. It was interesting and funny and it had a chase scene which didn't make my eyes glaze over.

The villains were the weak point, unsurprisingly. We don't really have a satisfying look at their internal justification for their behaviour. By the end of the movie, one of the bad guys is pegged as The Evil Megalomaniac Doctor Who Wants To Play God – everyone knows that trying to advance medical science inevitably leads to horrifically unethical behaviour like chopping up people for spare parts. We should just move back into caves and let people die of influenza and infected cuts like nature intended.

The other main bad guy is the Seemingly Amoral But Ultimately Redeemed Noble, Intelligent Mercenary. Curse his sudden, yet inevitable betrayal. Who didn't see that coming?

Just once, I'd like to see a Hollywood genre movie in which there are two irreconciliable conflicting sides, neither of which is painted as The Evil Side. If that's really not possible, I'd settle for the antagonist who loves children and animals, donates huge sums of money to charity out of genuine generosity, and is otherwise a pleasant and upstanding person – except that he finds it perfectly reasonable to treat a particular category of people as sub-human. You know, the way it usually happens in the real world, which has a major shortage of totally evil kitten-eating maniacs.

In other news, did you know that huge wodges of the script were shamelessly ripped off from a B-grade 70s flick called The Clonus Horror?

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Evil Fridge Cake

August 12, 2005 · Posted in Recipes · 2 Comments 

This is a Polish recipe for a chocolate dessert. I have it from my grandmother. In Polish it is called “blok”, which, amazingly, means “block”. As the name suggests, the end product is a block of chocolate-y stuff with nuts and biscuits, which can be cut into slices. It requires no baking, or any other complex culinary manoeuvres; the only equipment you need is a pot and a two-litre ice-cream tub. And a fridge, obviously.

Ingredients:

250g margarine (unsalted; I use baking margarine)
1 glass sugar
1 glass water
4 tablespoons cocoa
A few drops of vanilla essence
A few teaspoons of cinnamon (optional)

One packet (I'll check on the weight) full-cream milk powder
One packet plain biscuits (I use Marie biscuits)
An equivalent volume of mixed raw nuts (optional, but recommended)

Instructions:

Place the margarine, sugar, water, cocoa, vanilla essence and cinnamon in a large pot and bring to the boil, stirring until you get a runny, uniform brown substance. (To clarify: you do not want to end up with fudge in this step, so don't overcook the mixture. Heat it only until all the margarine is melted and it has just started boiling.) Take the pot off the heat and allow to cool slightly. In the meantime, break the biscuits into pieces. You can chop the nuts roughly or leave them whole. Add the packet of milk powder to the pot and stir until you get a thick, gooey, uniform lighter brown substance. Add the biscuits and the nuts and stir until they are uniformly distributed.

The resulting substance should fit comfortably into a two-litre ice-cream tub, which is what you should put it in (because ice-cream tubs are bendy and so you will easily be able to remove it later, and because ice-cream tubs have lids and you don't want your chocolate to taste like fridge). Spoon the mixture in (at this point it will be clusters of biscuit and nut glued together with chocolate; do not be alarmed, this is normal), and smooth the top as much as possible. Put a lid on. Put it in the fridge, and leave it overnight.

The next day, remove the block of chocolate stuff from the tub by wiggling the sides and bottom to let air in. Slice the block into thin slices (about 1/2 cm thick – this stuff is really rich!). You can stack the slices up and put them back in the tub; as long as you keep it in the fridge, they won't stick together.

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