When Linda asked me last year to start reviewing science fiction and fantasy for January Magazine, I was delighted. It took me a while to discern what the field was like after years of not reading a lot of it. I’ve never been a big fan of fantasy of any sort – I don’t/never read Tolkein, didn’t grow up reading Norton dragon books, don’t get a lot of fantasy. But I really seriously wanted to at least try reading what I’m sent.

After a year, I’m not so anxious to see what I’m getting from the publishers. I haven’t found a good s.f. novel in months (some are probably ok but haven’t grabbed me, I keep trying honest, Linda) and I haven’t been even tempted by a fantasy novel in months and MONTHS. I’m getting lots of unoriginal (shhh don’t tell anyone I said this) crap. Stuff taken from tv shows, movies, from D&D games. I’m not big on tie-in books. I vastly prefer original story lines. It doesn’t help if I have no familiarity with the game/tv show/film either.

And trilogies. Or as we tend to talk about them Chez Roscoe the “17th book in the epic trilogy”. The doorstops. They’re huge, they’re sagas and they’re all interchangeable.

I wrote Linda at one point when she wrote hoping that I was just drowning in good books and I said “alas, I’m getting lots of doorstops. And they don’t interest me at all. They’re 800 pages, they’re the 17th book in a series I never heard of. And they really all seem to be of the same (clearly sellable) form. I wrote to Linda saying (to somewhat recap what I said) “they’re all about mages, and dynasties, and birthrights and castles, and princesses and scarred evil wizards, and clan wars and epic adventures. And that’s just taking words from the pr material. I can’t read that stuff. I can’t care about birthrights and evil princesses and dynastic castles. And centaur curses.

Then this morning I was reading the “magazine” thing that comes with our Sunday paper. It tends to have stuff about food or wine or gardening, about remodeling and some Seattle-based story. And I don’t drnk a lot of wine, so reading about it, well I just don’t. But a description caught my eye and all was lost.

I don’t get wine tasters, wine experts and wine language. Wine tastes like fermented grapes to me. Unless it’s from that Nashoba Valley vineyard in Massachusetts in which case it tastes like apples or pears or peaches or raspberries that have had something happen to them for a while. But I don’t have the “sophisticated palette that allows me to taste “hints of mango, green tomato and hickory” or antelope, crookneck squash and aspen. Green tea, dynamite and sunflower seeds. One “real” one in the paper included pie cherry, plum and “coffee-infused”. But I don’t WANT that in my wine, dammit!

I don’t get aftertastes, undertastes or whatever. I doubt I would even if I worked at it. But wine descriptions do have the power to crack me up. And today’s paper offered the sheer yumminess of a syrah with “incredible fruit intensity and underlying flavors of river rock.”

River rock. No THANK you.

And I told Stu and he brought back something I’d said to him after the “fantasy doorstop” email I had sent to Linda which I told him about.

“It’s all Mad Libs”. He said.

He’s SO right. If you don’t know the game, it’s from my childhood 9dear god there’s a “mad libs” web ring) where you’re asked for parts of speech without knowing what they’re for. Then they’re plugged into the story. So you are asked for a noun, adjective, color, and a past tense verb and you offer “bottle” “cheesy” “lilac” and “ran” and you get

Once upon a time, in a small BOTTLE, there lived a CHEESY princess. Her hair was long and LILAC and she RAN all day, wishing for something to do.

See?

Mad Libs Fantasy Novels.

Mad Libs Wine Descriptions.

Is there any other possible explanation?