One each from Pakistan, Peru, Egypt, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobego, Virgin Islands, Ukraine, Venezuela, Norway, Iceland, Malawi, Korea, Hungary, ok I am running out of twitter space now #WorldSFStats
So a random observation as I wait for my pizza. I recently re-read what I consider one of the best fantasy novels of the 20th century, John Masefield's MIDNIGHT FOLK (1926) - also one of the best children's novels of the 20th century, when it comes to that. Anyway--
Modern sf/f narratives almost uniformly have at stake the fate of the world. Now admittedly this goes way before LoTR or what not - Arthur, the Fisher King, the Waste Land etc. maybe set up the template, which is then explored in commercial plot terms. Anyway--
What's at stake in MIDNIGHT FOLK - what everyone's after - is... treasure.
That's it. And they're not after this treasure (the lost treasure of santa barbara) for any great mythical or world-saving reasons. the witches+wizard are after it because it's worth money.
Sodor... shit. I'm only in Sodor. Every time, I think I'm gonna wake up back on the train tracks. I'm here a week now. Waiting for a mission. Getting softer. And every minute Thomas runs the rails he gets stronger.
Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission. And for my sins, they gave me one.
I was going to the worst place in the world, and I didn't even know it yet. Weeks away and hundreds of miles tracks that snaked through the war like a circuit cable...plugged straight into the Fat Controller's brain.
Her name was Kanga and she was trouble. She came into my office as I was about to dip into a honeypot. I liked honey the way priests love God.
"You are Pooh? The detective?" she said.
"I live under the name of Sanders. What's it to you?"
"My boy," she said. "Roo. He's missing."
"I can pay you," she said quickly. "All the honey you can eat."
"I can eat a lot of honey, Toots," I told her.
"Please. I'll give you all the honey pots I have."
I looked her up and down. I looked at my threadbare room. There was no honey anywhere anymore.
I needed it. I needed it the way a trainspotter needed to whistle at trains. I knew someone controlled all the beehives in the Hundred Acre Wood but I didn't know who. I was sure Roo was connected.