Our son was born last Monday morning. We named him Midas. Both he and his mother are fine.

Words escape me to describe the joy of having brought this new life into the world.

Out for a month now, the debut novel “De Scrypturist” by Paul Evanby should be required reading for all Dutch-language fantasy lovers. I have a single extra copy, signed by the author, which I will give away for free to the first reader who sends me the correct answer to the question I post at the end of this review.

You know the awkward feeling when someone you know and like has created a work of art, and you are in a position to give your opinion about it? And what you really want to say is “try your hand at a different hobby”, but you don’t want to hurt the other’s feelings?

Well, imagine my joy and relief* when I read “De Scrypturist”, Paul Evanby’s debut fantasy novel, and realized that I would not need to hold back or soften the blow. All I have to do is tell the truth: the book is great!

Dutch fantasy readers: it’s in stores all over the Netherlands right now. Go get it; you won’t be disappointed. English readers: I hope for your sake that the book makes it across the language barrier.

My Dutch-language review follows:

Eindelijk weer eens een fantasy-roman waar avontuur en relevantie, spanning en betekenis, fantasie en herkenbaarheid naadloos samenvloeien! Met "De Scrypturist" heeft Evanby laten zien dat fantasy ook in het Nederlands taalgebied op hoog niveau wordt geschreven.

Mauric Dystergroeve is een van de beste Schrijvers in Revantijn. Op bestelling schrijft hij een simpele bescherming of een grootse spreuk om de werkelijkheid te beïnvloeden, of creëert met zijn symboliek de complete virtuele wereld van de Schering. Dan komt er een vreemdeling de stad binnen, op de vlucht voor een donker verleden, wanhopig op zoek naar een geheim boek. Samen binden ze de strijd aan tegen de ramp die niet alleen de Schering, maar zelfs de werkelijkheid bedreigt.

Evanby's debuut is op vele niveau's te lezen. Voor de liefhebber van avontuurlijke fantasy met pakkende, geloofwaardige wereldbouw, een spannende, complexe plot en driedimensionale karakters heeft het boek al ruim voldoende te bieden.
De invoelbare verteltrant maakt bovendien dat je als lezer niet alleen op cerebraal niveau wordt meegesleept. Het spel met de realiteit waar het concept van Scryptuur zich voor leent, brengt voor de lezer een plezierige verwarring mee, die het boek zoveel meer impact geeft.

En Evanby gebruikt zijn vertel- en schrijftalent om het boek nog veel rijker te maken. Voor wie het wil zien, leest het verhaal als een metafoor voor hackers en cyberspace; een maatschappelijk commentaar op vreemdelingenbeleid en drugsproblematiek; een parabel van Europa op de drempel van de Industriële Revolutie. Maar nergens wordt dit dominant of in het minst prekerig, want Evanby zorgt op meesterlijke wijze dat het verhaal en de karakters overal centraal blijven.

Zoals het tegenwoordig schijnt te horen in fantasy-land wordt De Scrypturist gepresenteerd als het eerste boek van een trilogie. In dit geval heeft Evanby echter een wereld gecreëerd en een lijn uitgezet die ongetwijfeld nog twee delen zozeer blijft boeien als dit eerste boek.

Prize question: What connects the year 1988 and the collection “Systems of romance” containing stories by Paul Evanby? Send your answer to scrypturist@floriskleijne.nl.

* Well, not relief as such, actually, because I already suspected that Paul is a talented writer… :-)

In a feature article on traffic safety this week, our newspaper quoted the statistic that 80% of car accidents happen in the first or the final five minutes of a trip.

An odd lack of precision, that. I would think that the vast majority of car accidents happen in the final seconds of a trip.

The crowning piece of Good Stuff that happened to me yesterday was an email from Sniplits, informing me (after agonizing over the decision for 449 days*) that they would gladly buy my short story Dumb Son (or TSFKATT: The Story Formerly Known As Toby’s Trophies), for podcast publication. The tale of sweet, mentally challenged Toby, his predilection for Chinese dumplings, and his confrontation with a serial killer, is very dear to me, so I’m immensely happy that the story has found a home.

Toby is my sixth story sold, my third audio sale, the second non-SF, non-fantasy, non-horror story, and (disturbingly perhaps) the first in which nobody dies a violent death (at least, not on-screen).

Look for “Dumb Son” on Sniplits somewhere in August, or perhaps in October (depending on seven separate determining factors, according to the editor, only one of which I have any control over).

* More probably, they spent most of those 449 days working through the rest of their immense slush pile; at least, I can’t imagine someone pouring over Toby’s plight for 15 months.

Every once in a while, Good Stuff accumulates in such great quantities on a single day that it threatens to short out the brain’s happiness center. Yesterday was such a day.

The day was already a success when I managed to solve a problem at work that had been gnawing at my brain for months. The solution was neat, simple, robust, and working, and so by coffee time I already felt like I could take on the entire world.

After coffee, an email came in. Michiel v/d Pol, the Dutch cartoonist who drew our wedding comic, wrote to let us know that he is able and willing to also design and draw the card we’ll send out once our child is born. The thought of a card announcing our baby’s birth in his unique style made me believe I could take on Mars and Venus along with the world.

A little later, my wife texted me that she had aced her chair massage exam. Mercury, asteroids, come one, I can take you too!

Then the final bit of good news came in, almost shorting out my happiness center, and making me feel like the entire solar system was mine to command.

As the perfect epilogue to a perfect day, the evening brought a wonderful dinner party with dear friends, good food, and wine aplenty.

Sometimes, life’s just this good.

There is a conspiracy afoot to thwart my attempts at acquiring navigation software for my new smartphone.

A year ago, I learned of the upcoming TomTom 7 navigation software. Screenshots and descriptions sounded utterly cool, so I decided to see if I could get my hands on a (legal) copy. TomTom customer service was less than helpful, so I gave up on the issue.

Then my eye was caught by the sublime navigation package iGO 8 by Nav’n’go. 3D landscape! Buildings! Overpasses displayed as such! Saving common itineraries!* PDA contacts automatically added as Points of Interest! The list of coolness went on and on.

Needless to say, I just had to get this software. So I studied the list of compatible devices and calculated when I could reaonably expect Vodafone to give me a new phone for freeish with my subscription renewal. On the list of compatible devices was the HTC Touch Diamond smartphone, a beautifully designed piece of electronics with touch screen, Google Maps, Youtube Mobile and more and more; a true geekfest. It didn’t have a slideout keyboard like it’s big brother the Touch Pro, but that one was not on the compatibilty list, and the whole point was to find myself a device that would run this epitome of navigation coolness, iGO 8.

Finally, The Big Day came. I renewed my subscription, payed a bit extra for the sleek black orgy of technology, the HTC Touch Diamond, and went online that same night to buy myself iGO 8.

So when after 81 days GUD sent me an email informing me of Prisoner of War’s 8th rejection, I wasn’t even that disappointed. After all, what’s a little artistic rejection when you have your baby’s sonogram as background image in your cool new phone?

Anyway, POW bounced right back out there, this time to the Catastrophia Anthology.

It’s different when it’s your own indeterminate, potato-shaped blob of white noise in a big grey wedge.

The sonogram lady placed the transducer on my wife’s belly, and without further ado, our tiny baby-to-be sprung onto the screen. Two miniature legs were clearly visible, folded against the abdomen; and one of the two arms actually seemed to wave at the camera. (Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.) The bit where the grey didn’t come into proper focus was the heart, beating enthusiastically. A miniscule nose was clearly visible.

With two routine clicks, the sonogirl measured 43,8 mm from head to tush, and thus set our baby’s prenatal age at 11 weeks*, the expected delivery date at November 18.

And then, with just one more simple click, she fixed a little yellow box on the screen at the location where the image wouldn’t focus, hit a button, and just like that, our baby’s heartbeat sounded. “Ka-thump-ka-thump-ka-thump-ka-thump-ka-thump-ka,” the loss of volume caused by our child deciding to become a bit squirmish and twisting away from the sound beam of the sonograph.

Our child has a heartbeat!

The rest of the session was spent gazing awed and moved at how our child twisted and moved every which way, demonstrating a marked aversion to having its picture taken—either that or it was showing off its talent for exercize. Though with our genes, that’s not very likely.

PS: For those exceptionally slow off the mark: I’m going to be a dad!

* The sonogram was a week ago today; I held off on publishing this until the first trimester was complete.

You thought Chinglish is bad? Try Frenglish!

There's a restaurant in the heart of the French Ardèche region, established in the impressive bowels of a medieval castle, where the staff are hospitable, the wine flows freely, and every single dish is a blessing for your tongue.

That is, if you actually manage to stop laughing long enough to order.

Among their many mysterious dishes are:

• Fryings of Joels
• Delight of the snail and thumbed sound of goat
• Jumped of pig to the farigoulette and his furniture
• Miller’s wife trout to penalties fries and his beef salad with parsley
• Terrine fat Liver of Duck to Belated Vintages
• Ravenous cheek Dips in the sauce White Butter
• Paving of Salom-coloured Roasted
• Tournedos Dips in the sauce Flaps mushrooms
• Mouse of Lamp Roast and His Juice of Thyme
• Salads of asparagus to the salmon smokes
• Laying of pork butchery
• Snails has her Provençale
• Assessments of net lamb
• Faisselle cremates chestnut

A facsimile of their entire menu (including the original French names of the dishes) is here.

How annoying. A Dutch Christian organization thought it necessary to distribute about 6,000,000 copies last week of a flyer arguing the relative value of creationism vs Darwinism. What a waste of paper, ink, effort, and energy!

Not that I'm against the flyer per se. After all, everyone is free to say whatever they want.

What annoys me is how they argue against Darwinism. In their eagerness to sow doubt about the validity of Darwin's brainchild, they have come up with the worst non-argument conceivable:

“Listen, people, it's only a theory!”

Worst thing is, they probably thought they were very clever when they came up with it. They may even have interviewed an evolutionary biologist. I imagine the interview went something like this:

But Professor, isn't it true that evolution is only a theory?” asked the Reverend.

“Reverend, that hasn't been a valid philosopho-scientific argument for a century,” the Professor replied.

“That's not an answer, Professor. Is evolution only a theory?”

With a frown, the Professor sat up straighter, and began counting on his fingers.

“Is nuclear fission only a theory? Is cancer treatment only a theory? Are Mendelian genetics only a theory? The essence of modern science, Reverend, is that we don't discover absolute truths. We discover facts about the natural world, and formulate theories to explain those facts, so every single thing we 'know' in science”--he marked the quotes with his fingers--“is a theory. A theory, I might add, that is valid as long as it hasn't been disproven, and gains predictive value with every empirical observation supporting it. I don't see the fact that the curative value of antibiotics is only a theory stop you from taking your pills when you have an infection, Reverend. Saying that something is 'only' a scientific theory--” again, his fingers marked the quotes--“is synonymous with saying it's science: a coherent explanation of the natural world, supported by a wealth of empirical evidence, and never disproven despite energetic efforts to that end!”

Here the Professor, who had gotten increasingly agitated as he spoke, sank back into his chair and drank deeply from his glass of water, before finishing with:

“Which is more than I can say for creationism!”

The Reverend was unmoved. His peaceful countenance threw up some doubt whether he had even listened to the Professor's brief speech.

“Yes or no, Professor: is evolution a scientific theory?”

“For God's sake, man, desist!”

“Is It?”

“Did you hear me at all? Yes, evolution is a scientific theory, as is--”

But the Reverend had already jumped out of his seat, beaming triumphantly, and revealing the recording device hidden under his robe.

“Ha!” he cried out, and whipped out his cell phone to signal the go-ahead for the first print run.

Religion doesn't bother me. I'm a great believer in freedom of speech. Even the abuse of a small forest for this inane and pointless purpose isn't that big a deal.

But willful stupidity gets me riled up every time...