Well, last night I finally finished reading Elizabeth Kostova's massiv Dracula meta-novel, "The Historian." (Think a cross between the "DaVinci Code"--only better-written--and Bram Stoker, with a setting criss-crossing around Cold War-era Europe reminiscent of old Alfred Hitchcock or James Bond movies.) Very, very entertaining. Around 5/6ths of the way through, it was dragging a little with reminisces within reminiscences that didn't seem to go anywhere--its been commented that this is a book more often bought than finished, but it's definitely worth sticking it out. The last hundred pages are just wonderful and wouldn't have worked without the first 542--I liked the original Stoker novel, but Kostova has a much better sense of dramatic structure, timing, etc. Having been fed on a strictly rationed diet of hints of horror for the first 5/6ths of the book, the feast in that last 1/6th is bliss.

(BTW, Steph, thanks for the book!)

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Having finished the long march through Roumanian history late last night, today was devoted to the recent/trendy subcategory (i.e. what I somewhat pretentiously think of as the "contemporary post-ironic" subgenre of speculative fiction.) . This morning I finally got around to reading The Book of Jashar by Ben Rosembaum and then I started up The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt. (That's how you can tell this still is in the recent/trendy catgegory...it's all written by people whose blogs I read.) The "contemporary post-ironic" label is best born out by Pratt's label for Rangergirl: "cowpunk contemporary fantasy and two-fisted meta-fiction." 'nuff said.

The last short story that I wrote, "Eternal Life," deals with somewhat similar material that it was suggested I'd probably like "Jashar" and I finally got around to it this morning. Definitely worth reading--the Biblical archaeology conceit and imitation of standard Biblical translation prose style works just beautifully, and I loved the Philip K. Dick reference in the beginning:

"Following the death in 1998 of my beloved cousin, Oedipa Maas, I came into possession of certain effects of the late Timothy Archer, at one time Bishop of San Francisco. Bishop Archer's association with the Qumran excavations (which led to his break with the Church) has been recounted elsewhere..."

For those unfortunate enough not to have read it yet, "elsewhere" would be "The Transmigration of Timothy Archer," the final book in Philip K. Dick's loosely-linked "Valis" trilogy. Timothy Archer was the fictional Episcopal Bishop of San Francisco, a thinly veiled fictionalization of Jim Pike, the real-life Episcopal Bishop of San Fransisco, a close friend and intellectual twin of Dick's....who, unsurprisingly given that piece of biographical information, stood trial within the Episcopal Church for heresy and, although he beat the rap, later jumped ship of his own accord.

In any case, it's a lovely bit of synchronicity to read "Jashar" now, just days after the media was plastered with buzz about a real life weird biblical discovery, the ancient manuscript of The Gospel of Judas.