Ooooookay. Update time.

I've just finished catching up with my friends list (I had a backlog of some 200 posts...) and then, to make catching up with my friends list an even more difficult task in the future, friended a whole bunch of people from the brumscifisoc because, well, basically, they had friended me, and I thought it impolite not to friend them back. Although with some of them I'm still not quite sure who they are... (That's an oblique way of asking you guys to introduce yourselves to me, for those who didn't get that. ;-))

Actually, I'm kinda scared now - suddenly, there's loads of people reading my LJ who I actually know in Real Life. That's... kinda creepy. ;-)

Well, what else is new?

1.) I've sold my soul to these folks:
http://www.eastercon.com/concourse
That is to say, I volunteered to talk about Farscape. (What else? I'm a one trick pony.) Why do I keep doing this to myself? First DortCon, now this... At least DortCon was small!

At least I'm not going to be completely alone there - I just found out that BiFi, of the SFCD (http://www.sfcd-online.de/), is going to be there as well, so at least there is *one* person there that I know (and know I like)!

2.) After a few days of slacking - and slowly getting all kinds of neglected things done - I'm now beginning to feel ready to get back to doing something constructive again.

3.) I still owe selenakan e-mail and feedback. I also sort of owe dunkle_feuer and ballyharnon feedback. These three mails/postings are actually near the top of my To Do List at the moment. Finally.

4.) Going to meet my parents in about a week! Wheeeeee!!!

5.) TBFC7 is only a few weeks away! Wheeeeee!!! *g* (Wanna participate? Go here:
http://fstreffen.allabouthmpf.com
Wow, we've been doing this for three years now.
Oh, and Scapekid is going to come, too! International participation! How cool is that?!

6.) I'm still happily exploring comics. Next on my To Buy List are
- Téhy & Béatrice Tillier: Fée et tendres automates (http://www.ventsdouest.com/fee/home.html)
- Alan Moore: Watchmen
- Schuiten & Peeters: Les cités obscures (http://www.urbicande.be)
- Jim Woodring: Frank (http://www.jimwoodring.com)

Plus everything Carla Speed McNeil has published that I don't own yet. (http://www.lightspeedpress.com)

Plus the second volume of this:
http://www.ravenschildren.com - I bought the first volume recently, basically on a whim (it didn't cost a lot), and although I'd say it still has some teething troubles - for one, it's very confusing, and I'm *not* easily confused by complex tales - it looks quite interesting. And now that I've read the first half of the storyline, I really want to know how it continues!

7.) The next few weeks are going to be convention time:
9.-12.4.: Concourse, Blackpool
23.-25.4.: TBFC7, Bad Neuenahr
30.-3.4.: Collectormania, Milton Keynes
7.-9.5.: Mini Tolkien Get Together, London
Think I'll be able to actually revise for exams besides all that?

I must spam your friends lists for I have been away...

and I have to make up for the shocking absence of Hmpf on said lists in the last few weeks. Also, I really need to make some new converts. *eg*

While I have told you all in great detail how hot Jaeger Ayers is, and while I have posted drenloads of links to reviews and excerpts and other Finder related stuff, I have, so far, failed to really elaborate on the series as such. Since I have recently received most of the missing paperbacks and single issues – the two latest issues and the Mystery Date spin-off issues I don't have yet – I am now better equipped to talk about the series as a whole.

But first, some personal background.

( irrelevant personal stuff, or How I Found Comics )

So. Finder. How to describe Finder...? Let's start with the setting. The series is set in a far future that nevertheless looks remarkably like the present in many respects, which makes it almost more confusing than if it were entirely alien. As it were, you can easily forget that it's set in a strange place/time for long stretches, and then suddenly be shocked out of familiarity by things like, oh, a centaur crossing the road. Or a Laeske, which is a huge, intelligent, feathered lizard, running with the traffic. This strange mix of contemporary things and looks with a wholly alien social order, and often very alien biology, makes for a very fascinating world. It's certainly different from your standard sf setting.

The world of Finder is defined by harsh contrasts. Much of it seems to be wilderness, largely empty of humans except for roaming tribes of nomads, and the occasional 'company town'. (Think updated Wild West settlers that are all but slaves of a company that owns the town.) There don't seem to be any countries as we understand them; territories are apparently ruled by great domed cities that hold sway over the surrounding wilderness. There's a military that seems to be used as a tool for colonising parts of the wilderness, ripping the land from its original inhabitants – there are some obvious Wild West parallels here, as well as parallels with the Roman Empire.

Not all of the nomadic tribes are human, by the way.

The culture of the day is at once heavily dependent on very sophisticated technology, and almost totally clueless about technologies that used to be common in earlier ages, and in fact about some of the technologies it is based on. There is 'objective' magic, and a Pastwatch Institute that employs people who can channel the past and recover – often very garbled – knowledge of earlier times, some useful, but most of it useless. Radio stations play ancient pop music recovered that way. Current languages, strangely, include English and Arabic (as well as 'Miremai', a traders' language, and Laeske.) Hospitals experiment with 'modern medievalism'. People collect ancient credit cards.

Society in the big cities is dominated by clans that strive for the greatest possible uniformity. Clans have uniform looks, attitudes, sometimes even attire. In Medawar clan, boys are early on prepared for a life in the military of the police while girls become nurses and doctors; in Llaverac clan, everybody looks and behaves female (“There's your granddad. Isn't *she* gorgeous?”) and is a bit 'artsy' and quite often also slightly crazy. Sylvan clan look like albinos and can do magic. People who are not born into a clan have it difficult; Jaeger, the main protagonist so far, who is not only clanless but also a nomad halfbreed, doubly so.

There has obviously a lot of genetic engineering been going on, and possibly not all life on Earth is actually *from* Earth. (If Finder *does* take place on Earth. Sometimes I'm not quite sure.) I've already mentioned the Laeske; there are also all kinds of human/animal 'constructs' – artificially created anthropomorphic animals that have the intelligence of humans but do not have the same rights, as well other strange hybrid beings. As for the wildlife, that is equally strange. In Jaeger's childhood memories we see him hunting giant dragonflies, and being chased by dinosaur-like creatures.

While Jaeger is a pretty important character, his story is far from the only focal point of the series. Two of the five trade paperbacks so far have been devoted entirely to the stories of other characters, although Jaeger pops up in both of them. The universe of Finder is full of fascinating characters, many of whom we hardly know anything about yet, and the footnotes imply that at least about some of them we will find out more in the future.

As for Jaeger, he is a bundle of contradictions, which is what makes him so fascinating, of course. I'd rather not say too much here because trying to figure out Jaeger is one of the main attractions of the series. Without giving away too much, though, I can say that he is both a very nice person and, in his own, and a friend's, words, an asshole. That is to say, he can be incredibly nice while he's *there*, but as Rachel, the daughter of his lover Emma observes, he doesn't *stay*. Sedentary and monogamous he is not. (That is mainly a result of his cultural background, and some personal psychological issues that we have only begun to get a glimpse at with issue 30.) Also, he doesn't seem to have any serious compunctions about killing people. Not that he's a homicidal maniac or anything of that sort (except when you lock him up... locking him up is a *really* bad idea.) He just, err... well... doesn't seem to mind collateral damage all that much, maybe.

Oh, and did I mention he's hot? I'm sure I did. *g*

Other main characters so far include Emma Grosvenor and her kids. Emma is about 20 years Jaeger's senior, near as I can figure, and the wife of his former commanding officer and sort-of-friend Brigham Grosvenor. Emma is a Llaverac and a bit crazier than your average Llaverac because she has had a very traumatic marriage. Brigham, who is from Medawar clan, is a total nutcase who terrorized his family psychologically, keeping them in constant fear and eventually locking them up in the basement of their house in a military colony for several years. Jaeger met the family before things got completely out of hand, and had an affair with Emma; in the same year, though, he suffered a serious head injury and went into a coma, and so wasn't around when Brigham went off the deep end. The story of Sin-Eater, told in the first two paperback collections of the series, picks up some six years later, after Emma has left Brigham, and Brigham has spent some time in prison. Jaeger gets caught between loyalties, and for the duration of a about 14 issues of the comic tries to keep Emma safe and Brigham away from her and the children, but of course eventually the dren hits the fan... Over the course of the first fourteen issues, Finder deals with family, abuse, insanity, cultural conflict, gender issues, and develops a host of believable, sympathetic characters.

Go buy it. Muss ich mir hier den Mund fusselig reden? ;-)

(http://www.lightspeedpress.com)

The Harry Potter AU thing...

just acquired a new title (it is now, for the moment, called 'These Days') and about 400 new words. I've set myself a goal of about 500 words a day, so I still have some way to go, but I'm hungry, so... dinner first. The going is tough today. Those 400 words took me quite a few hours. But at least they're written now. Better to struggle for a few hours than not get anything done...

Hey, brumscifisoc people...

just_misguided and herdivineshadow, I did recognise the two of you. Oh, and Helen, yes, I was in Café Connections last Wednesday, but I didn't see you, either. So, no need to feel bad for not recognising me. ;-)

Thanks also to enlight_bystand and rossb for introducing themselves. (And shame on all the people who didn't! *g*) Unfortunately I am still somewhat uncertain about who you are, Pete... did we ever talk? Please enlighten me, oh enlightened bystander. *g* (Sorry, I have a terrible memory for people, which combined with a reluctance to ask people for their name again, makes for some pretty embarrassing situations.)

I sort of missed the last few meetings, which is kinda sad, as it seems they were the last?! Or are there going to be meetings in the summer term, short as it is? I should probably ask our venerable chairbeing ommadon...

Oh, and just out of curiousity: who is elcarpeto? He seems to be running around Selly Oak at the moment trying to update his LJ from as many houses as possible...