Prison Cats

 So, some of the cats who come to the cat room come from prison -- specifically, the detention center at Monroe, Washington, about thirty-five miles from the cat room.  Here's a recent article describing the program:

https://komonews.com/news/local/monroes-convicted-killers-save-lives-of-abandoned-kittens

Basically these are feral cats, most of them from hoarders and cat colonies. Many have never had an owner so they tend to panic when picked up or touched. The prisoners socialize the animals, holding and interacting with them until they come to associate humans with more than just food.

And since it never rains but it pours (as they say in Bree),* here's another recent story about a joint effort by a number of animal-rescue groups to help offset the lack of community resources to take care of the cat local population in Hilo, Hawaii (on the Big Island). I wdn't be at all surprised if some of these abandoned strays and feral cat-colony cats wind up at Purrfect Pals.

https://www.king5.com/article/news/hundreds-of-dogs-cats-coming-from-hawaii-need-homes/281-2de9d032-b983-4166-b66a-030faf08c233

--John R.

--current reading: THE RIFT

*the weather report suggests we'll be able to test this maxim ourselves soon

APPENDIX N, The Anthology

 So, thanks to Doug A. for pointing out the announcement of the forthcoming book APPENDIX N: THE ELDRITCH ROOTS OF DUNGEONS & DRAGONS by Peter Bebergal (Strange Attractor Press, 2021). This seems to be an anthology gathering together a selection of titles from the 1st edition AD&D Recommended Reading list --not a discussion of the stories, such as Jeffro Johnson's APPENDIX N: THE LITERARY HISTORY OF DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (2017), which I believe began life as a series of blogposts. Instead Bebergal is reprinting works by sixteen of the authors so named by Gygax back in 1979.

https://boingboing.net/2020/11/10/read-the-authors-that-inspired-gary-gygax-and-the-origins-of-dd-in-appendix-n.html

This "selection of short fiction and resonant fragments" are taken from sixteen authors, of whom eight are named in the article linked to above: 

Lin Carter

Poul Anderson

Fritz Leiber

Jack Vance

Tanith Lee

H. P. Lovecraft

Michael Moorcock

Lord Dunsany.

The write-up also promises that the book will be accompanied by a chapbook novella of A. Merritt's PEOPLE OF THE PIT.

That seems to me a pretty good list, though the scholar in me cannot forbear to point out that Tanith Lee, while worthy of being included on her literary merits alone, did not in fact appear in Gygax's list. This suggests a certain slipperiness for criteria.* And I find myself curious as to the other eight authors might be.

One curious feature of the book is its presentation as a D&D adventure, GG1. Descent into the Temple of Appendix N, clearly a homage to Gygax's D1. Descent Into the Depths of the Earth (1978). 

I think I'll pass on the deluxe 30 Pound version and hold out for the paperback edition to follow.

More on this one when I find out more. I'll certainly be on the look out for a more complete list of authors, and of what works are chosen to represent the authors already announced.

--John R

current reading: THE RIFT by Nina Allan

*Similarly, they speak of Virgil Finlay's having illustrated the chapbook, without mentioning that Finlay has been dead for almost fifty years

 

A WILDERNESS OF DRAGONS is a finalist for this year's Mythopoeic Award

So, last week I saw that the list of finalists for the 2020 Mythopoeic Awards has been announced. 

And I'm happy to see among them A WILDERNESS OF DRAGONS: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF VERLYN FLIEGER.  

Here are all five finalists for the award in Inklings Scholarship:

Amendt-Raduege, Amy. “The Sweet and the Bitter”: Death and Dying in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 2018.  

Fimi, Dimitri.  Sub-creating Arda: World-building in J.R.R. Tolkien's Work, its Precursors and its Legacies.  Walking Tree Publishers, 2019.  

Johnson, Kirstin Jeffrey, and Michael Partridge.  Informing the Inklings: George Macdonald and the Victorian Roots of Modern Fantasy. Winged Lion Press. 2018

 

McIlwaine, Catherine. Tolkien: Maker of Middle-Earth. Bodleian Library, University of Oxford,  Great Britain; England; Oxford, 2018.  

Rateliff, John D. Ed. A Wilderness of Dragons: Essays in Honor of Verlyn Flieger. Gabbro Head, 2018. 

 I've read or skimmed all but one of these* and can say that we're in good company. 

Congratulations to all the contributors, and to all the nominees.

--John R.

*while I hear good things about the Johnson & Patridge book, MacDonald is a little outside my purview, so it's further down on my must-read list.

The Cat Report (Friday November 6th)

So, I didn't post a write-up two weeks ago because I never got my notes written up. And the following week I didn't go in to the cat room because the room was empty: all the cats had been adopted, leaving the room empty. This week the room was filled again on Wednesday the 4th, yet half those cats had already been adopted by the time I arrived yesterday at noon.

Here's a picture of ELLIE ruling the roost in her new home:

LINK

Thanks to the quick adoptions of the FINN and POPPY pair (who if I got it right arrived Wednesday midday and were adopted out Friday morning) and of Mr. BEAN (likewise; sounds like a great cat), we were back at three cats by noon today: MAESTRO MISTROFFELEES and bonded pair WINNIE (the little mom, who’s all black) and WIZARD (the kitten, who’s mostly black).

I started by making Mr. Mistroffelees, our twelve year old tuxedo cat, come out. He was so distressed he wet himself while I was pulling him from his cage. Once out, however, he was delighted to have attention, sitting next to me on the bench while purring up a storm. He likes being petted, being held, and catnip, I think in that order. I took him out for a walk, which he liked well enough but seemed to puzzle him. He quickly discovered the row of cat-stands but didn’t understand why he cdn’t climb up and over and behind them. He then discovered the cat-beds and declared all was forgiven, only to give up on me when I wdn’t let him curl up in them either. Still he did fairly well on the leash and I’m glad I got him out for a while.

I petted Wizard and Winnie* a bit in their cage (they were inside the bag and under the blanket, sometimes both in the bag, with little Wizard sometimes up on a self). I left their door open, thinking they might come out on their own. They didn’t, so I eventually made them come out by simply picking out the sack, cat inside. I put the soft tube on a shelf of the cat-stand and little Wizard claimed that spot. I put Winnie-in-a-bag on my lap, then transitioned this into her on my lap with a cat-blanket over her while I petted her some and rubbed her ears some. She was in petrified mode but hope the contact did some good. Eventually she got down and spent the rest of my shift atop the bins, partly covered by her blanket.

So, shy cats to those they do not know or trust, but they show every sign that they’re likely to warm up as they get acquainted with their new surroundings. 

There were lots of people looking at the cats from outside. Hope they spread the word.

—John R.

*ages three months and two years, respectively

The Hand of the Necromancer

So, when writing recently about the late Len Lakofka's early AD&D setting of Restenford and environs, I completely forgot about one contribution I made to the setting: THE HAND OF THE HIGHWAYMAN.  

This was a  short (11-page) adventure set in Restenford, available free online as a web enhancement for SONG AND SILENCE, the Third Edition class handbook for Rogues and Bards written by Dave Noonan and myself. My memory of the details is vague, but I think this was put together by Penny Williams for Julia Martin's web team and, based on the credits, edited by Miranda Horner. 

I know that Dave wrote the parts describing traps, he having created the trap system in SONG AND SILENCE, while I'm pretty sure I did that part about the Hand of Glory, having myself been interested in that traditional item ever since I first learned of it years before via THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS and John Bellairs (as well as being a fan of the old Smithereens song). 

Here's the link to the piece, --published in 2001 and, surprising enough, still available through the Wizards website.

http://www.tsrarchive.com/3e/Highwayman_new.pdf

Enjoy.

--John R.

Flieger Festschrift reviewed

So, I'm happy to see that a lengthy review of A WILDERNESS OF DRAGONS has now been published by THE JOURNAL OF TOLKIEN RESEARCH and is now available for download and viewing at their site:  

https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol11/iss1/2/

I'm happy to say that reviewer Deidre Dawson has a lot of nice things to say about the collection while giving it a good detailed critique. I was particularly pleased by the attention to and praise of Taum Santoski's piece, which I took as confirmation that I was right to include this posthumous contribution. So valuable does she find Taum's piece that she suggests it wd have been a good piece to start the book with, creating a category of its own.

Deidre then proceeds to discuss and evaluate each essay in the collection. In the process she reorganizes the essays according to theme, creating a better sense of interaction between the individual pieces. I had experimented with some such groupings when working on the book but eventually abandoned this as imposing more structure than strictly needed. Having already contributed an Introduction, notes on Taum's piece, and an essay of my own,  I wanted to avoid further editorial intrusion so far as practical. That said, I particularly enjoyed this suggested order, which some readers might find a useful orientation when reading through the book. 

Her only other criticism is with the title: by omitting the word Tolkien from either title or subtitle, I inadvertently prevented it from showing up on as many online searches as wd otherwise have been the case. Mea culpa. 

On a personal note, I'm pleased that she has a good word for my own essay ("meticulously researched", "fascinating").  And who could not be pleased by her final summing up: 

"a rich collection of essays of overall very high quality, 

which both established Tolkienists and those new to 

the field will find informative and engaging"

--That's just what we were trying to achieve. I'm only sorry we didn't have the chance to use that as a blurb on the cover.

--JDR

current reading: Patricia McKillip (last book in the RIDDLE MASTER trilogy), David Lindsay (his unfinished final book THE WITCH).

  

Papaw's birthday

Papaw's birthday. November 1st. Gone far too soon but not forgotten.