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Teaching was a little odd this morning. My students were off-kilter because their routine had been spoiled (new table set-up, unexpected staff absences) so I worked on vocabulary and the senses rather than trying anything super-solid. By morning tea we were fine and even had an illustrated poem about a happy elf and a story where Evil Teacher says things like "And today you're learning every element of French vocabulary imported into English from 1066 to the present." Also, morning tea was chocolate biscuits, because we made a group decision that we needed unhealthy food.

Morning tea was, in fact, rather funky. It turned into an impromptu question and answer about menopause and perimenopause. It was my boss's doing, but I admit, I thought it was a good thing. There's way too much misinformation out there. None of my male students turned bright red, which was something. When we got back to the table, after the break for menopause and sex preferences and research into these things (one thing led to another, so they now know some of the components of a good anthropological study as well as why chocolate is so important to women of a certain age) everyone was quite settled and all was well. We finished our work and I did the messages of today.*

I was quite warm coming home, and was surprised to find it was sill only ten degrees. The sun was shining and the wattles are out and hayfever has begun, and my mind translates this into warmth.




*My messages of tomorrow are quite different, as are those of Friday. This is one of those weeks when I can't just get it all out of the way at once, which is good, in a way, for I get more walking.

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Twenty-one books are facing a small moment of minor truth.

I borrowed a bunch of time travel (and related) novels early in my doctorate (from the estimable Michael Barry, who needs to read this and contact me, please!). By 'a bunch,' I mean 'twenty-one.' If I was going to write a time travel novel, I was going to find out how others did it. I've never been one of those people who look innocently at interviewers and say, "I don't actually know the genre." I like to know my genres, and when I subvert them it is entirely with intention. This means that the first six months of my doctorate included reading every single time travel or historical SF/fantasy novel I could get my hands on easily, and Michael had a little collection of classics and was happy for me to borrow them.

I journalled my reading, just in case I needed notes of the experience. I didn't, so I stopped journalling after a bit, but other stuff I journalled saved me months of work at the writing-up end, so I am a firm believer in journalling for creative writing doctorates. Not so useful for Medieval Studies, but the language is more interesting in Medieval Studies*.

Anyhow, I did all this and am now checking my bibliography for these items, for I read these at the moment I trusted and believed in the modern computer systems. Those systems failed me, as you know. I will sort them out for next time, for why spend time doing the boring things when a computer will do it for you? In the meantime, this particular task doesn't prove to be boring at all.

I have twenty-one books in front of me and I have read them all. I know I have read them all because they are named and dated in my journal. They are classic enough for Michael (and others) to have said "You can't do this study without having read them." I don't remember them all. I'm only two years on, and some of them have already walked right out of my memory.

I have a retentive memory for books, so this is a curious phenomenon. It's not a complex phenomenon. It simply means that some of the SF that others regard as good literature is not memorable. Possibly even not good fiction. Just good of its kind.

The thing about time travel novels is that they aren't terribly common. Most of them follow a straightforward formula. These twenty-one are mostly books that don't follow one of the formulae. This, I think, is what makes them stand out in peoples' minds.

The books I *do* remember are the ones I want to list, for memorable books are always worth listing. I'm not sure that all of them are strictly time travel - Michael and I were interpreting broadly. And this is not the total list of books I read, by any means, so there are both amazing books and dreadful books that are not here.

Paul McAuley Pasquale's Angel. I borrowed this only to read it again. I love this book. I need to own it one day. it was unforgettable even before I borrowed it, therefore, and thus goes first.

Dan Simmons Hyperion. I had avoided this forever because so many books don't live up to their hype. This one exceeded the hype. Of course, I remember it.

Gore Vidal Live from Golgotha didn't live up to the hype (I apparently am not a big Gore Vidal fan) but it did stick in my mind.

This time round I remembered Fritz Leiber's Changewar stories. It took me halfway through the volume to realise that I read them in Toronto in 1984, though. I don't remember what I thought of it back then, alas.

I remembered what I thought of James Blaylock's Lord Kelvin's Machine.** I totally adored it when it first came out. Not so much on re-reading - I had forgotten swards of it. My reading self changes over time. The rest of me, of course is immanent and forever.

Connie Willis To Say Nothing of the Dog is unforgettable, delightful and I need my own copy.

Gene Wolfe The Devil in a Forest is the book I remember because I can't work out how the world operates. I have sent people to it, to fret over the world building. I must be reading it wrongly. The whole society looks non-functional to me.***

Philip Jose Farmer To Your Scattered Bodies Go. I read this first as a teenager and I loved the premise. In fact, I loved the whole thing to pieces, being a Mark Twain addict and nursing a secret fondness for riverboats. As I grew, unfortunately, I developed a distrust of Farmer's historical understanding. This means that I remember this book from two years ago, but not for the best of reasons.

Michael Moorcock Behold the Man. I always wonder how this one plays with Christian SF lovers. It's one of his best books (in my view) but it's not very respectful. It's also terribly sad.

And that's the lot. I've been updating the bibliographical details as I've been blogging, so that's doubly the lot. All that remains is finding Mr Barry and returning them.



*If I had journalled my first doctorate it would have included many bleeped out words and comments such as, "Why did no-one tell me I only had three months to learn yet another b* language," and "Why are the only copies of these books in an obscure library in the middle of England?"

**I need more apostrophes in this sentence.

***Even in the most mysterious of fantasy settings, I like to know how people get their food and where an inn gets its custom and why a hamlet has specialists more suited to a town. I don't object to these things being there, but I need to understand why.