Dear anon meme people,

I thought you might want to know that when you use the acronym AYRT, despite the fact that I theoretically know what it means, I hear it in my head as an elderly man with a broad Yorkshire accent stating an affirmative followed by spitting out of the side of his mouth.

I doubt this is what you intended, but it does sometimes make threads more interesting.



I started re-reading The Gods of Mars after I saw the movie, and I have realized that a couple of the sillier things that I assumed were added by the scriptwriters (like the ridiculous framing story in which ERB is John Carter's nephew and executor) are actually honest-to-goodness book canon. Sorry, scriptwriters! I should have remembered you can always have faith in ERB to go to the extra few feet over the top.

In a related matter, I had forgotten that most of the Barsoom books were written in first person, and in thinking this over, I have come to a sudden realization: I don't like third person limited POV. That's why the Barsoom books suck me in irresistably but when I tried to read Tarzan I just kept skipping ahead to the next bit with Jane in! Tarzan is all third person limited - well, okay, "third person Edwardian" which is basically a very messy version of limited, but generally close enough.

And when I think back to the books and book series I've been really very fannish about, comparatively few of them are third person limited, especially considering how very dominant that POV has been in my lifetime. Even Harry Potter is a modified third person limited; JKR jumped out of the limited POV whenever she felt like it, and especially at the beginnings of the books.

I've been reading Hal Duncan's series of writing tutorials based on The Eye of Argon (which someone on my network linked to, and are quite good, by the way, they pick apart into elements of craft a lot of basic things I'd never quite looked at that way) and the one on POV pushed me to thinking about this, too. I really don't like third person limited. I can do it, with reasonable comptence anyway I think, and a well-written story written in it is fine as a reader, but it's no fun; I've generally tried to stick with it unless given an excuse not to, because it seemed like the thing to do, but why?

( more whining about 3rd limited )

Now pardon me, I am going to go rework some of my stalled WIPs into more interesting POVs.