Remedy For Straining My Brain

I think it was Ulysses that did it. Strained my brain, I mean.

I got a bit too close, that’s all. Too close to the rarified atmosphere or wherever it is that Ulysses lives.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have written yesterday’s blog. Well, not all at once, anyway.

It’s left me a bit vague and drifty. Not a bad feeling, but certainly not conducive to full functioning.

I’m sure it will pass, this light-headedness. But I’ll be more careful when approaching the dizzy heights of literary genius next time.

However, I have a remedy. Hal Spacejock.

Yep, that’s the way to get back to normal. I hope you’ve heard of Hal. Not the, ‘I’m sorry I can’t do that, Dave,’ HAL of Stanley Kubrick.

Hey, hold on there. Stanley Kubrick is getting up into rarified air again.

Let’s get down to earth again. Stick with Hal Spacejock.

Hal is the brainchild of Simon Haynes. Simon is an author from Perth, WA. And Hal Spacejock is the worst space pilot in the galaxy. The books are funny, filled with gung-ho adventure and mishap, have beautiful women, crazy plots, and a save-the-day robot named Clunk.

Simon has written four Spacejock books, and if you like Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett or Red Dwarf, or that guy Ford with two ff’s, then perhaps Hal Spacejock should be on your reading shelf.

You can get the first book free. Yep. Free, with one f.

Head on over here http://www.spacejock.com.au/ and you will see the link for a free download of his first novel in the series.

Ulysses for the Patience Impaired

I’ve never read James Joyce’s Ulysses.

I’ve never even started to read it.

I believe that some people pretend to have read it, for example at a posh literary dinner, but that’s not me.

I have however, read some of the Wikipedia entry. I don’t think that counts for much in the world of literature, but it lets me say profound things at literary dinners like how Ulysses contains the longest single sentence in the English language.

At something over 4,000 words it’s really a short story without a meal stop. If you want a bit more accuracy on the word count, go chase up Wikipedia. Or perhaps you can read the book until you come across a sentence that has been going on for over three thousand words and perhaps you’d better go back and start counting them to see if this is the one.

And now …..

And now there is another thing you can do. You can read the comic version.

Seriously.

It’s not completed yet. In fact they’ve only got into the first of its eighteen episodes. But they are adding to it each week, which is what, after all,  Joyce did with the original. (I got that last bit from Wikipedia. Don’t hold that against me.)

Here is the link http://ulyssesseen.com/