Trapped By Monsters

FICTIVE INTELLIGENCE, Understanding the World by Reading Fiction, and LIBRARIANS

18 June 2012 By Joe Craig 0 In General, Libraries

A couple of years ago I was asked to write a few lines about the importance of reading. I wrote this:

Reading a book is a direct injection of inspiration.

Reading shapes brilliant minds. It gets your brain throbbing and your heart racing.

It can bring you a thousand years of experience in a few pages.

Reading means bigger laughs, deeper feelings and a peek at the secrets of life.

We understand the world through stories. What we read makes people make sense.

I found myself thinking of that again last weekend at an amazing conference for librarians from all over the country. I was surrounded by hundreds of the best minds in the country, the most passionate champions of literature. They get together at conferences like this one to share ideas about how to continue to inspire. How to blast through all of the obstacles that stand between any average kid and his or her first experiences with a book. How to guide them into a lifetime of reading.

And it matters. I said it up at the top there: we understand the world through stories. I really believe that. A brain that’s used to being immersed in fiction can grasp more complex concepts and construct narratives to make more sense of problems in the world.

It might be a relationship thing, it might be a global economic crisis. Whatever it is, there isn’t just one simple cause. There never is. There is a complex intermingling of events that comes together to create the STORY of what’s happening.

In other words, the world cannot be explained and all its problems solved by tweet-length explanations. We need longer, deeper, richer understanding. We need brains that have been trained by reading novels.

I call it FICTIVE INTELLIGENCE. It’s my name for the kind of understanding that can only come from reading fiction. It involves sustained concentration, greater empathy and an ability to see beyond the quick soundbyte to the many various forces that have contributed to the situation: the “accumulation of many small advantages” – or in some cases, disadvantages. The bigger picture, over a longer period. All the subtle shifts and their gathering consequences.

Every time I see a politician trying to sell us a quick fix or a news report that blames some mess on a single person or event, I know I’m looking at someone who didn’t read much fiction when they were younger.

But at this conference, surrounded by the greatest accumulation of Fictive Intelligence I’ve ever seen in a single space, I realised that these people were not only able to see the world differently, they were the guardians of Fictive Intelligence for everybody else. Librarians are uniquely equipped to unlock a lifetime of understanding in every child.

For me, there is a succession of direct links that goes something like this: read fiction… develop the kind of deeper understanding of people and the world that I’m talking about (Fictive Intelligence)… see problems (your own and the world’s) with a richer sense of how they came about… solve problems.

If the politicians who are making decisions to cut library funding, remove books from schools and sack librarians can’t see that trail of links, then it’s clear to me that what they lack is any trace of Fictive Intelligence.

They didn’t read enough fiction and we will suffer for it. Because now they can’t see the narrative they’re creating unfolding into the future.

The future will involve as many crises as the past. What changes is our collective ability to handle those crises. A population that has been deprived of librarians is trusting to chance that enough people will somehow discover fiction they love and become lovers of reading and stories.

Chance is not enough. That population without librarians will quickly lose all Fictive Intelligence.

We won’t have the tools we need to meet challenges we know are coming, let alone the ones we can’t even imagine yet. And eventually we won’t even see the pretty simple story of how it all went wrong.

Yes, I’m saying that to ‘fix’ problems we need more librarians: in every school, in every town… dammit, put a librarian on every street corner and you’ve got the best crime-fighting strategy you’ll ever need.

Do it now. Give us librarians so we can create a population that loves reading, that understands stories, that sees the world for the rich and varied place it is, that doesn’t shy away from complexity or subtlety and that can therefore face any crisis – even a crisis so grave as the one facing libraries right now, that not enough people seem to have noticed or chosen to care about.

It matters.

fictive intelligence, Joe Craig, librarians, Libraries, life, philosophising, reading

The Hands of a God

11 June 2012 By Sam Enthoven 0 In Brilliant Books!

As soon as I saw this…

…I knew I’d have to go. An opportunity to see original pages by Japan’s “God of Manga” Osamu Tezuka was too good to pass up – and when I got to the exhibition, the artwork was every bit as beautiful (and flawless! and terrifyingly prolific!) as I could have hoped.

But I had reservations. I admired Tezuka’s art. I could see the massive influence he had on manga – particularly the work of Naoki Urasawa, whom I’ve mentioned on TBM here – as well as on comics as a whole. The problem was, I’d just never quite connected personally with any of his stories before. Until now.

Black Jack is a doctor. But his scarred, patchwork face, forbidding demeanour and his own mysterious moral code have put him far beyond the pale of mainstream medical convention. Some think him nothing more than a backstreet black market charlatan, taking advantage of the weak and sick. He has no license. He charges exorbitant fees. He takes cases only for his own, often opaque, reasons. And he is a medical genius: the greatest surgeon who has ever lived.

I’m a sucker for ‘wandering hero’ stories, and Black Jack hits that spot in me exactly. The way Jack goes from place to place, cuts into situations and people, uses his godlike powers to alter them irrevocably and not always for the better – then leaves – appeals to me enormously. I love the stories’ abstruse, edge-of-unfeasible medical details. I also love the series’ occasional and always surprising elements of sci-fi and fantasy: there’s a story in the first volume in which Jack is called in to ‘heal’ a medical computer that, until it became ill, was so sophisticated that it could run a whole hospital and even perform operations – and if you like that, you’ll love the origin of Jack’s companion, Pinoko.

Most of all I love this series’ strong moral core. This is storytelling that isn’t afraid to tackle big themes, and do so with style and wit as well as passion.

Tezuka himself studied medicine: it’s obvious that Black Jack is a character who was close to his heart. And whenever I’ve spoken to people here in Japan about comics, it’s often been Jack’s name that came up. Of all the characters Tezuka created I think it’s this one who will best continue to hold an appeal that crosses borders and generations. Black Jack is a manga classic, and I would recommend it to anybody and everybody.

Black Jack is currently being published in English – very handsomely – by Vertical, Inc. These three volumes photographed here are already probably more than is sensible to fit into my long-suffering suitcase. I’ll be sad to leave Japan, but at least when I get home I’ll get to read the rest.

Sam

The Forgotten

09 June 2012 By Tommy Donbavand 0 In Brilliant Books!, Teen Stuff!

As a big fan the BBC sci-fi series, Blake’s 7, I was very excited to read The Forgotten – the first new novel in the B7 universe for over 30 years, written by my good pals Mark Wright and Cavan Scott, and published by Big Finish. My review is below…

This is a fabulous book!

Mark and Cavan have written what reads like the novelisation of a missing Blake’s 7 episode – and I mean that in the best possible way. The action sequences are exciting, edge of the seat stuff, and the character scenes are so spot on that it’s almost impossible not to read the dialogue in the original actors’ voices. It can’t be easy adding fresh characters to Terry Nation’s universe, but Scott and Wright give us new faces who, somehow, have always been there – just waiting to be discovered.

I don’t want to give too much away regarding the plot, but the chance for Blake to hold a mirror up to his ambitions gives us a rare glimpse into the darker recesses of his personality, and Avon’s self-serving works on many levels. Add to that Vila’s not-quite-cowardice and space for the much-maligned Gan to stretch his oversized muscles, and you’ve got a book you’ll find difficult to put down – all written in a style you would easily believe was hammered out of Nation’s own 1970′s typewriter. In short – if you were ever a fan of the Liberator crew, reading this is like teleporting back to the golden days of the Federation.

Nostalgia – standard by 12.

Tommy

Shine Bright

06 June 2012 By Sam Enthoven 0 In Brilliant Books!, Teen Stuff!

Momoko is a Lolita. She loves frills, flounces and beautiful embroidery. Ichigo is a Yanki. She loves pachinko, fake designer sportswear and her biker gang. Who is the toughest? How could two such different people possibly become friends? You’ll be surprised.

Kamikaze Girls by Novala Takemoto is funny, smart, warm-hearted and thoroughly awesome. It’s also a glimpse into a side of Japan that visitors like me rarely see. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

HEE HEE HEE!

03 June 2012 By Sam Enthoven 0 In Video

Prometheus? Pass. Batman? Blah. But this (via Twitch) is a film trailer I’m excited by…

Monsters, Max von Sydow, more monsters and a premise that looks a bit like John Carpenter’s They Live but set in Moscow and EVEN MORE MENTAL?

Yeah, I’ll take some of that.

Ghost-Pirate Wood

31 May 2012 By David Melling 2 In General, Illustrations!

What grisly tale has lured this band of misfits from the safety of their ship onto the cursed land upon which they now stand, rooted to the spot? Me thinks they been and gone and done somthin’ real bad…and paid the price…

Arr!

Congratulations, Barnaby!

30 May 2012 By Guest Blogger 1 In Brilliant Books!, Illustrations!, Important Announcement!, Links!, Other sites, Publishing!

It is with great delight that Trapped By Monsters extends its clammy tentacles of congratulation to TBM escapee Barnaby Richards on his new book deal! His autobiographical comic BEETROOT will be published in 2013 by Blank Slate Books – and it’s going to be WONDERFUL.

Meanwhile, in case you haven’t seen it yet, this…

…is the first of the Postcards from Cosmo, which appeared here on TBM while Barnaby was still a prisoner in these caves. For more of his gorgeous work, click the link above or visit his site.

Great Dane!

28 May 2012 By Tommy Donbavand 0 In Best for 10 - 13 year olds, Brilliant Books!, Ideal for Under 10s

Check out what the postman had in his sack for me today – copies of Scream Street from Denmark!

More To It Than Sushi

28 May 2012 By Sam Enthoven 0 In Brilliant Books!

Japan has one of the very greatest eating and drinking cultures in the world – deep, rich, complex and delicious. Many Japanese people are passionate about food, and will travel all over the country and the globe in search of interesting regional specialities. For a visitor the choice is bewildering. As with many things here, a person could happily spend an entire lifetime just finding new and awesome Japanese food experiences. Where to begin? Well, what’s worked best for me is this:

Oishinbo, written by Tetsu Kariya with art by Akira Hanasaki, is a manga about Japanese food and drink. And it’s brilliant.

It’s incredibly detailed. This is because the characters talk about food and pretty much nothing else. From preparation, recipes, ingredients and where they come from, discussion often spins out into the wider subject of old versus new – the necessity of preserving precious traditional ways of doing things as set against the exciting possibilities of new developments, new techniques, new influences.

But all this detail also comes wrapped in a surprisingly compulsive story. When challenged by the newspaper he works for to create an Ultimate Menu, moody young misfit journalist Yamaoka Shiro and his friends become locked in a titanic ‘battle of the foodies’ with Shiro’s estranged father, Kaibara Yuzan. Between that and the episodes from the lives of Oishinbo‘s cast of supporting characters – each one of whom is impeccably believable and entertaining to hear about – the result is a reading feast as fascinating and moreish as its subject. And then, after putting the book down, I’ve gone out and eaten, drunk and enjoyed things I’d never even heard about before I picked Oishinbo up. Result!

The theory that you can tell a lot about a country and its culture from its food is proved again in Oishinbo: it’s a riveting insight into both Japanese food and Japan itself. But I think this manga’s even better than that. If you’re at all interested in good eating you’ll get a kick out of Oishinbo. In fact if you’re interested in living your life with care and passion for anything else either I reckon you’ll get a kick out of it, too.

Sam

Do You Know Where Your Towel Is?

25 May 2012 By Tommy Donbavand 0 In Best for 10 - 13 year olds, Brilliant Books!

Happy Towel Day, you hoopy froods! Each year, 25th May is a day set aside for sci-fi fans to carry a towel and remember the work of the late, great Douglas Adams.

Do yourself a favour, and check it out here: www.towelday.org