Age of Iron by Angus Watson.
Well, Angus something....
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Nifft the Lean by Michael Shae
Goodreads mentions that he's been influenced by Jack Vance, which is true - it is kind of Tales of the Dying Earth-y, with a strong Hieronymous Bosch flavour added to it.
Also have 'Red Seas and Red Skies' by Scott Lynch to be going on with, along with the tail end of pt. 2 of Richard F. Burton's 'Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina'
We aren't required to report on post-coital literary pillow talk here, are we? :o
Not required to, no.
Also, I thought goblins did it in the steets.
Nifft the Lean by Michael Shae
Goodreads mentions that he's been influenced by Jack Vance, which is true - it is kind of Tales of the Dying Earth-y, with a strong Hieronymous Bosch flavour added to it.
Also have 'Red Seas and Red Skies' by Scott Lynch to be going on with, along with the tail end of pt. 2 of Richard F. Burton's 'Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina'
I just heard of Nifft the Lean the other day, too. I hope my library has it.
Not required to, no.
Also, I thought goblins did it in the steets.
So the streets have pillows in.
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So, I just devoured Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling on a plane ride. It was exactly what I was looking for in a high fantasy novel, and I have promptly ordered the next two volumes of the Nightrunner series.
Has anyone else here read these?
Re-reading Brent Weeks' Night Angel trilogy. Just something fun and easy since I'm so busy at the moment.
Listening to the audiobook of Horns by Joe Hill (Stephen King's son). Saw the movie recently too, loved it. Very obvious case of adaptation distillation, where characters are changed, some events are cut or altered and so on to make it fit as a 2 hour story, but it certainly remains true to the spirit and overarching plot of Hill's novel.
Finished all the ghost-stories in Kwaidan; all that's left is an 80 or so page essay about butterflies that I think I'm going to skip.
Found out from the tres cineaste Commandant of the Scottish Republic Army that there was a film version in the sixties made by a Japanese Marxist. I'll see if I can go find a link in a second.
Picked John Brown back up and he's about to go postal in the Swamp of the Swan.
Man, I'm glad I didn't live in the 19th-century. Sounds like the dude built something like two dozen houses for him and his ample progeny over the years. DuBois is the shiznit, btw. Really gonna have to sit down with Black Reconstruction one of these days.
Been taking advantage of the morning to clean la Principessa's apartment. Man, she's a mess.
Anyway, found so many books in piles of teacher union bulletins and Victoria's Secret receipts, and I haven't made a list in awhile, so:
Books Lying About La Principessa's Messy Apartment, including Pamphlets, but not Mimeographs of Articles about Anthropology, Gun Control and Marxist Interpretations of A Song of Fire and Ice:
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
The Battle of Wisconsin: History and Lessons from the Working-Class Revolt of 2011 by George Martin Fell Brown
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Frederick Engels
Leon Trotsky and the Organizational Principles of the Revolutionary Party by Dianne Feeley, Paul Le Blanc and Thomas Twiss
Twentieth Century Interpretations of "The Crucible" edited by John H. Ferres
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
The Ungentlemanly Art: A History of American Political Cartoons by Stephen Hess and Milton Kaplan
Feel the Fear...and Do It Anyway: Dynamic Techniques for Turning Fear, Indecision, and Anger Into Power, Action, and Love by Susan Jeffers, Ph.D.
A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism by David McNally
1984 by George Orwell
Dealing with Difficult Parents and with Parents in Difficult Situations by Todd Whitaker and Douglas J. Fiore
Reds at the Blackboard: Communism, Civil Rights, and the New York City Teachers Union by Clarence Taylor
Imagine Living in a Socialist USA edited by Frances Goldin, Debby Smith and Michael Steven Smith
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EDITED TO ADD BOOKS IN A BOX OF HER XMAS PRESENTS
The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings translated by Dennis Tedlock
The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution by Leon Trotsky
Arthurian Romances by Chretien De Troyes
and two fancy photography books:
Century: One Hundred Years of Human Progress, Regression, Suffering and Hope "Conceived and Edited" by Bruce Bernard
Cross by Kelly Klein
Comrade Longears may be interested to hear that yesterday afternoon, I sat by her side on the couch as she edited a paper on Lolita for a high school senior she tutors. I glanced over when she was looking at the bibliography and chuckled. "What?" "Hee hee! Olympia Press!" Led to a funny conversation and, later, to her explaining to her student that she had to cite the publication that she had at hand, not the edition first listed on the internet.
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I shudder to think what the Olympia Press edition of Lolita is like. Probably, downloading it would be tantamount to walking around wearing a big sign saying 'Please Put Me On The Sex Offender's Register'
Pt. 2 of Richard F. Burton's 'Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina' ended rather abruptly with Our Hero's escape back to India and has now morphed into a 16th century translation of a contemporary Italian traveller's account of the same journey. Spelling has not been modernised, so not an easy read; most of the time he just seems to be incredibly cross that the inhabitants aren't Christians.
I finally found a downloadable version of 'Proofs of a Conspiracy' by John Robison, so I'm going to read that next.
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Been taking advantage of the morning to clean la Principessa's apartment. Man, she's a mess.
Anyway, found so many books in piles of teacher union bulletins and Victoria's Secret receipts, and I haven't made a list in awhile, so:
Books Lying About La Principessa's Messy Apartment, including Pamphlets, but not Mimeographs of Articles about Anthropology, Gun Control and Marxist Interpretations of A Song of Fire and Ice:
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
The Battle of Wisconsin: History and Lessons from the Working-Class Revolt of 2011 by George Martin Fell Brown
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Frederick Engels
Leon Trotsky and the Organizational Principles of the Revolutionary Party by Dianne Feeley, Paul Le Blanc and Thomas Twiss
Twentieth Century Interpretations of "The Crucible" edited by John H. Ferres
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
The Ungentlemanly Art: A History of American Political Cartoons by Stephen Hess and Milton Kaplan
Feel the Fear...and Do It Anyway: Dynamic Techniques for Turning Fear, Indecision, and Anger Into Power, Action, and Love by Susan Jeffers, Ph.D.
A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism by David McNally
1984 by George Orwell
Dealing with Difficult Parents and with Parents in Difficult Situations by Todd Whitaker and Douglas J. Fiore
Reds at the Blackboard: Communism, Civil Rights, and the New York City Teachers Union by Clarence Taylor
Imagine Living in a Socialist USA edited by Frances Goldin, Debby Smith and Michael Steven Smith---
EDITED TO ADD BOOKS IN A BOX OF HER XMAS PRESENTSThe Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings translated by Dennis Tedlock...
Oh fer crying out loud, Doodles, based on the bibliography? You two oughtta get married after one visit like Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner! (Look, at least you've got literary compatibility, right?)
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Currently reading Master of Devils in the Pathfinder Tales line. I love how we get a first-person view of Arnisant's escapades.
Currently reading Master of Devils in the Pathfinder Tales line. I love how we get a first-person view of Arnisant's escapades.
I keep asking (actually it's been a while since the last time), for a web fiction piece starring Arnisant, but no luck so far.
And I just finished När vi var bäst (When we were the best) about the time Sweden dominated men's tennis.
(At one point in the mid-80s, you could be in the world top-25 players and still only be ranked 8th in Sweden. Today, Sweden's best-ranked male player is Elias Ymer - ranked 212 in the world. The best ranked woman player is Johanna Larsson, 73 in the world.)
The gobbo hasn't found La Principessa's secret stash of Rand books yet. :-)
Oh fer crying out loud, Doodles, based on the bibliography? You two oughtta get married after one visit like Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner!
Well, that's certainly a better set of role models than Paulo Malatesta and Francesca Da Rimini, or as I quipped after she told me the story, Heloise and Abelard.
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Samnell, I don't know if you are still reading Civil War stuff, but I thought of you while reading this news item about abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy: Lovejoy's will found.
Oh, and I'm reading stuff. Serpent's Skull AP, to be exact. I liked the fiction by Robin Laws. It has a "Magnificent Seven" vibe, though the plot is very different from that movie.
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The Wild Cards mosaic novel Low Ball edited by Melinda Snodgrass and some dude called GRRM....
Didn't Snodgrass use to work on some obscure sci-fi show?
Been taking advantage of the morning to clean la Principessa's apartment. Man, she's a mess.
And, under the heading of shamefaced hypocrisy, I was cleaning my room and discovered a book I thought I had lost and will now read before I finish the last Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story:
The Dark Light Years by Brian Aldiss
Also thought I'd mention I had packed The Riddle Master of Hed for my trip to NYC, but, alas, left it in Brooklyn and won't be going back until early February.
In the meantime, I have realized that I am going to have to break my vow to not read A Song of Fire and Ice until either a) it was finished; or, b) Mr. Martin shuffles off this mortal coil.
Turns out this Maoist-inclined independent red historian who was vying for the affections of la Principessa just finished his "Marxist interpretation" articles, which she keeps mentioning because even commie chicks enjoy it when the boys fight over them.
I don't know if anyone else is a Queen fan, but I just finished "Brian May's Red Special" by Dr. May and Simon Bradley. The book is full of anecdotes from Brian, wiring diagrams and X-Rays of the guitar, and pictures of various copies and spin-offs made over the years. While Simon Bradley was in charge of the final text, much of it is culled from interviews with Brian, so the narrative speaks with Brian's voice. At least, I can't think of too many other guitarists that can work in "hysteresis" and "1/2 to the 12th power" while describing a guitar's design.
'The End - Germany 1944-1945' by Ian Kershaw and 'The Crisis of the Modern World by Rene Guenon. I got the Guenon out of the library thinking 'This is really going to annoy me', and it does!
Finished off World of Ice and Fire. Definitely a fun book with lots of factoids, most I don't think will be relevant for the actual novels, but still make the world more complex and complete.
Also a surprising large number of Lovecraft references, which I really wasn't expecting.
I did expect some mythos references, but Ser Kermit, son of Ser Elmo was a surprise.
Love Among the Ultra-Left Litterateurs
Did some over the phone reading to calm down La Principessa. Marvell, Joe Abercrombie (beginning of Best Served Cold--
Discovered, to our mutual disappointment, that the legend of Paulo unknowingly wooing Francesca on behalf of his brother Giovanni was invented later and was first set down by Boccaccio.
[Shrugs] As John Ford said, when confronted with reality vs. the legend, print the legend.
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks. I started reading it back when it first came out, but never finished it. Enjoying it more this time around and looking forward to picking up the next book in the series.
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The Black Prism by Brent Weeks. I started reading it back when it first came out, but never finished it. Enjoying it more this time around and looking forward to picking up the next book in the series.
I'd be very intrested to here what you think of the book when you finish it - Weeks is one of those authors that I keep hearing about but can't decide if I want the commitment of starting a series by them. Why did you stop halfway through the first time you read the book?
I have a tendency to misplace books and start reading something else. Sometimes I'm able to just pick a book back up a week or so later, other times I can't and have to start again (I generally start reading Stranger in a Strange Land once every year or so, and misplacing it around the same point every time. I've been doing this for 10 years or more, and have at this stage figured out I may never finish it). As for why I wasn't enjoying it so much last time... could easily have been that I just wasn't in the mood for that style of fantasy. I've been on more of a traditional fantasy kick lately, while for a long time prior to that I was all about the urban fantasy (it's still my favourite, but I've read everything I've got in that genre at the moment).
I've read Weeks' other series, The Night Angel trilogy several times now, and I love it. It's fast paced, fun, and well written enough. Not an epic for the ages, but just really enjoyable fantasy with cool magic, awesome characters and badass action scenes. Durzo Blint is possibly the coolest assassin ever, and while his apprentice Kylar (the actual main character of the series) may be treated as a bit of a butt monkey a lot of the time, he's pretty damn awesome too. I think that's Weeks' strength actually, he writes characters so cool that you just can't help but want to know what's going to happen to them next, even if some of them are jerks (again, Durzo).
Hello. My name's Limey and I've started reading Gor books again.
Having just finished The Black Prism, I have to say I really enjoyed it. I probably still preferred the Night Angel trilogy, at least so far, but again Brent Weeks' has managed to come up with some awesome characters and a cool magic system called Chromaturgy that reminds me a little of the Allomancy from mistborn, in that there's a variety of different effects you can get, in this case based on colours rather than metal, and there are differing degrees of skill in it.
Drafters in The Black Prism are able to draft light and colour into luxin, a physical material that has differing properties based on the colour it's drafted from. They're most commonly monochromes (only skilled in one colour, may have minor talent in another but not be able to draft stable luxin in them), more rarely bichromes (able to draft stable luxin in two colours, usually contiguous colours, like green and blue or red and sub-red (infrared), discontiguous bichromes are rare), and rarest of all, polychromes (able to draft three stable colours of luxin). The colours they can draft impose certain personality aspects on them over time, which is more pronounced when they're actively drafting. Their lifespans are limited by the fact that as they draft, the luxin builds up slowly in their system (represented by their irises being slowly filled with their colour(s)). When their irises are full, they either agree to be "Freed" (ritual sacrifice) or they "break the halo" and become a colour wight, becoming overtaken by the emotional aspects of their colour and drafting more and more luxin (often replacing bodyparts with it). The only one who can draft all seven colours, and can split light into it's constituent colours (meaning he doesn't need a specific colour in sight to draft it) is the Prism, a religious leader, only one of whom is meant to be born in each generation.
The story is primarily about Gavin Guile, the current prism, and a boy called Kip from a village that was recently razed by a self proclaimed king. Kip discovers that he's a drafter, and is taken by Gavin to the Chromeria (the central government of the world and also a school for drafters).
Don't want to say much else about it here, since it'll spoil the story, but I'd say it's well worth a read.
I'm going to take a quick break to read a few other quick things, then start book two in the series, The Blinding Knife.
The Killing of Worlds by Scott Westerfeld.
Part 2 of the Succession series.
Hello. My name's Limey and I've started reading Gor books again.
Crowd of Inebriated Perverts: HELLO, LIMEY!
Hello. My name's Limey and I've started reading Gor books again.Crowd of Inebriated Perverts: HELLO, LIMEY!
Is one goblin really a crowd?
My local comrade buddy is entering a contest on Michael Moorcock's website to write Eternal Champion fan fiction. I think. Apparently, you can compose your story on the website and then others (Michael Moorcock?) can comment on them as you write, but he isn't brave enough to try that.
At one point, my local comrade was planning a series of fan fiction about Stormbringer's sibling, Mournblade (right?), but that has been set aside for the moment so that he can write a story about Pax Tetchup, a transgendered communist Eternal Champion in a world ruled by techno-arcanists.
He has written seven pages thus far in which Pax has sex with a farmgirl, gets chased away by transophobes, and gets caught in the throbbing purple vines of the Tangled Mistress, Elemental Queen of Plants. In the first seven pages.
Was going through all my e-mails that I ignored while I was living in bliss with La Principessa and discovered that Mr. Comrade finally sent me something. Not much, and I don't think he'll ever finish, but, whatevs:
1 Dispelling myths
Paxshepsut held the quivering farmer's daughter in one arm while thrusting the other arm skyward to block out the light. The sky throbbed with a violent sanguine hue that pierced the think jungle canopy.
The meek and boyish farmers daughter let out a chirping screech as she rolled over to her clothes that clung to thick, purple throbbing vines, engulfing the tiny walls of the ruin they laid in.
" I knew he would discover us! Under six hours and we are hunted?!" Nearly dressed in her sandy colored ridding clothes standing she turned to Pax still rambling. "Ok not hunted but.. well maybe you." The flirtatious farmers daughter known as Liahme shot Pax a wry smile while lacing her boots. Or perhaps that you are not what you seem? mmm? Chemilar? More like Chem-il-her?" Liahme, fully dressed now she giggled and raised an eyebrow at Pax, hands on where her hips would be if she had any curves to speak of. She also looked skyward now with an odd curiosity." Although he usually uses his horns. Crow flares don't last this long."
Pax stood still holding one arm above to block out the , still squinting up to see. Straight, shoulder length, black hair made the finely tapered ears stand out on Pax's slender, olive tinted face. An elaborate golden torc with large hissing cat faces molded on both of its ends hung around the neck. A thin belt that favored one hip. The vine line belt was weighted with various small canisters and pouches. These where the only things Pax had on. With a sigh Pax's breasts heaved.
"Gender, as is perceived out here near the ring, in your farming towns, and in other places, has not been understood by the majority of our peaceful world for," she paused looking over at Liahme," well enough time to have cleansed society of such backwards notions. I say this out of love." Pax looked skyward again then fingered a small canister in the mess of them on the belt. " Oh, and that's Chief field Chemilar in charge of outer sphere development to you." Pax cracked a thin smile.
A tiny seed was plucked from the pouch. Pax stooped down and cupped a handful of water from a hole in the center of the stone altar they laid on. A massive tree had grown through the flat table of the alter, and water had collected at its bottom. Putting the seed with one hand in the cats mouth on the end of the Torc, pax splashed the handful of water at the same golden cat maw and instantly it sprung to life.
A sea of tiny green, soft brown and black tendral like roots streamed down over Pax's ample breasts, and then entire body, leaving only hands, feat and face naked of what appeared to a slack jawed Liahme as a second skin of roots. Then from the Torc a thicker layer of flowing green, liquid wood pooled in areas all over the body, shoulders and abdomen, arms and legs, leaving joined areas where the roots where still visible. The wood congealed to a dense greenish brown knotted mess. In the center of the flat now 'manly' looking chest an image seemed to be carved. Eight arrows pointing out from a center point, the one at the top and the bottom longer then all of the rest.
" Oh Pax," her eyes lit up and she pressed her body against her armored lover. "There is so much of this world that would have been lost to me if I had stayed in the east. Now I find my mind ever more hungry for what you claim lays back west." Pax embraced her with one arm.
" I fear my love that this has nothing to do with your caretaker the old bull. I have never seen anything like this in all my travels, nor in my years at university. In fact the only thing I can think of similar are from the works on the nature of the 5 spheres." She looked to Liahme and embraced her with both hefty arms, softly kissing her, closing her eyes and inhaling the dank jungle around them.
Pax's eyes opened slowly then shot open wide pulling Liahme behind the bulky wood armor. Deep in the hazy, dark jungle a light throbbed, illuminated the haze. Even the lagoon at the base of the ruin showed a faint crimson reflection. Liahme let out a high pitched "MEEP!", and Pax brought them both to the moss covered floor of the ruins. Off the alter in it's center, covering Liahme's mouth. Pax thumbed at a pouch on the belt when a tremendous howl came from the base of the ruin. It's origin hidden by the wall of the ruin facing the lagoon fifty feet below being destroyed and the stairs approaching being so steep zig zagged across the ancient boulder it was carved from. The howl echoed across the jungle.
The sound of clawed paws clacked across the stone plaza at the base of the temple, then quickly up the criss crossing stone stairs. Liahmes face turned cold under Pax's hand as she fell leaning against the massive tree barley breathing the words,"Roofdrak, Lord of Dogs".
"Impossible!" Pax harshly whispered throwing two handfuls of water at the Torc. Standing Pax glanced back at Liahme, a cold look while creeping toward the edge of the floor to peer over to the stairs below." If whatever it is, has any power such as the mythic Roughdrake, we'd be wise to forget any innocence we had left."
Thick red streaks poured from the Torc with a sizzle, sloping directly down Pax's right arm. The red liquid covered the hand and clung as it seemed to form a crude ball around Pax's fist With a jolt, a thick plume of red shot out of Pax's fist holding place in the air. The entire red area contained to the fist and the long crooked blade that protruded from it where slightly glinting as it hardened to a single ruby weapon.
One last glance and Pax saw Liahme clamor up the ancient tree that was covered in deep green leaves and pink roses bigger then a human head. The clacking of the paws was near the top and Pax could hear panting and short barking sounds, almost like orders, as if it where a language. Fear overwhelmed Pax for the first time.
As Pax's sweaty face began to peer down the boulders edge something struck Pax's left eyes with such force that pax was thrown sprawled on the moist, mossy, stone floor head throbbing with pain. Pax pushed off the floor with both arms as a ribbon of blood pooled on the stone from a closed eye. Then Pax saw the three beasts stop panting at the top of the stairs.
All where clad in cumbersome armor of thick leather and painted steel. The black paint was chipped all over. It matched their beady eyes, and longer tufts of hair at the tips of their wolfen ears but beyond that they where covered in in thick white fur. They walked upright on two legs and held contraptions in their hands, but their arms and legs where still that of a dog. Their long claws on their paws clutched the handles and triggers of the noisy smoking weapons they held.
The three menacing hounds held the smoking weapons out in front of them. They appear as small bows with an arrow sticking from a small box of gears that clanked and smoked. Underneath, affixed to the box was a long jar of arrows, the heads of which seemed the size of a fist.
Tiny roots shot up from Pax's back, gripping branches, ripping Pax into the leafy rose tree's canopy in a flash.
-PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK!-
Three stout arrows in a line drove themselves into the stone floor and wall as Pax flew up. Barking and yelping roared from as Pax breathed slowly, and was held still against a limb by the roots that also caught the rapidly falling blood from Pax's face. Roots gathered over the eye and then the bleeding stopped. A small disc of the wood pooled over it. Then silently Pax was lowered to the edge of the leaves, closer to the trunk of the tree, by the slowly moving roots. The hounds where milling about the area where Pax had ascended. They had a distinctive, almost ionized scent like snow fall. They sniffed the air with their snouts and whimpered a bit.
Vines reached down and then brought water to the Torc around Pax's neck as it was packed with a handful of seeds and brittle bits. Pax extended the left arm and crouched with the legs, hugging the tree with the bladed arm as the smaller vines fell dead to the floor and pool below. Like an arrow, gnarled stalks sprout from Pax's palm tipped with wobbly sacks, hurtled towards the dogs. The sacks the same sickly green as the stalks.
Before the hounds could turn the sacks had exploded on two of them the others hitting the wall. The stalks snapped from Pax's hand and then stood upright above the hounds like a tiny bamboo forest. Their howling, goo covered bodies plastered to the floor, the dogs writhed and their fur melted away, as did their flesh, organs and finally bone. The once clear sizzling goo now had a clumpy red consistency. As the last hound glared back at Pax the goo already hardened and sprouted short, thin, black, grass on the pool that was the other two dogs moments ago.
The last white hound ruffled it's black tipped ears and let out a roar of blood lust that sounded to Pax like "Demon!" and it ran forward. Pax let out a scream and jumped at the howling dog, vines from arm joints reached ahead and grabbed at the hound as it ran. A vine around the hounds left arm tug the beast a bit to the left and as the two met Pax's ruby blade sheared off that left arm as Pax rolled to the far side of the room.
"Owww owww owww!" The beast howled as it ran on the floor in a circle, squirming in the widening pool of blood.
Pax crawled over to the mostly pink beast in a few bounds. Straddled the yelping hound Pax had the vines encircle the hounds snout dampening the howls to muffled whimpers. Scrapping the hefty ruby hand off the ground Pax sliced most of the skull off in one movement leaving one dead beady eye and ear looking up. Covered in the monsters stinking innards, sweating and panting, Pax's good eye began to dim and then went black as Pax collapsed on the dead myth.
Synergistically weirdiose enough, he's enrolled in a Children's Literature course this semester where he was assigned The Princess and the Goblin.
Is one goblin really a crowd?
No, I s'pose not.
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Is one goblin really a crowd?Hello. My name's Limey and I've started reading Gor books again.Crowd of Inebriated Perverts: HELLO, LIMEY!
I'm not inebriated but am perverted enough for a crowd, I think. Or at any rate I was reading the Complete Book of Necromancers last night. That's got to count for something.
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Finished reading THE SHADOW RISING (WHEEL OF TIME #4, by Robert Jordan). Next up is FIREFIGHT (STEELHEART #2, by Brandon Sanderson).
Overall I really liked this book. It was considerably better than The Dragon Rebord (part 3 of the series). For the first time, the structure that each book held since the first - group starts in location A, some trollocs attack, group sets on journey to location B where a climactic battle happens - is broken, and that does the series good. The story structure worked well the first two times but was getting tired by the third.
The plot forked into three distinct subplots. Least interesting were Nynaeve (Or, as I came to think of her, The Hulk) and Elyane, accompanied by Thom and some others, chasing the Black Ajah yet again. By the end of the book nothing felt resolved or even changed about either the characters or their conflict with the Ajha - since for some unfathomable reason they adamantly refuse to kill the Black Sisters once they are captured, even though letting them go would allow them to kill many more innocents. They just warred over a macguffin and everyone pulled back unharmed and uncahnged.
Then there's Rands' story of becoming king of the Aiel, or Chiefs of Chiefs as they call it. Aiel society is interesting enough, and the journey to the past that Rand experienced in Rhuidean was great, showing a surprising look at the very high fantasy setting of the Age of Legends, with "magic" that is abundant enough that it should have felt like technology, but managed to still feel magical and awe striking. Knowing how the world used to look is enough to make me see the world as it is now in a whole new light - a bunch of savages, grasping at thin threads of barely remembered truths. It's really sad to see how far the world has fallen. Really great stuff there. The actual adventures of Rand in the waste were pretty standard high fantasy fair, which I found decently interesting.
My favorite sub plot is Perrin and his campaign in the Two Rivers. From my previous reading of the series I had a vague recollection that some character returned back home and that there were Trollocks. However, the story was much more interesting than that - the Two Rivers is flooded with magic and legends. Trollocks, tinkers, whitecloaks, Aes Sedai, a hunter who stalks the dream world, and an ancient evil in possession of a man who is pulling the strings behind the scenes. Even though I should have found the notion of farmers armed with pitchforks and butcher's cleavers fending off thousands of well armed and armored Trollocks - monsters two and a half meters tall, much stronger than any man, and savage in a fight - the book did a very good job of convincing me that the blood of Manatheren is strong. It was great to see that people transform into another kind of life, perhaps never to return to being simple farmers, and unite to face off a common enemey. Perrin also had the best arc in the book, evolving a great deal as a character and maturing.
So, anyway, speculation time. I am beginning to suspect that there might be some sort of an inherent difference between men and women in the WoT universe that will factor into the story later somehow. The first (and probably most obvious clue) is that each gender draws from a different part of the magic pool - that male and female channelers have some very basic differences between them.The second clue is the one that tipped me off - during the book some of the characters encountered a hero bound to the Wheel of Time - Birgitte Silverbow, and she shares some of her experience as being drawn again and again to live and die in different ages. From what I understood of her words, her lives are variations, differing from each other to varying degrees. The only actual constant, as far as I can see, is that she is always a woman. It's as if there is something about her gender that is more inherent than anything else about her, something that unlike anything else can never change. The same seems to be true for the Dragon Reborn, as well - or else he wouldn't go crazy every single time from using the One Power.
That got me thinking. Could there be a greater meaning to a person's sex than is first apperant? Is it some basic component of the magic system? When I thought about it, I remembered how 90% of the dialog in these books is about men and women being annoyed at the members of the other sex and making sweeping remarks about "men" and "women" in general whenever they have a chance.
Could this be a twist hidden in plain sight from the very first book? If so, I'd be greatly impressed. If not, then I think Jordan might be laying it a bit thick with all the "men are such and such" and "women are such and such" talks in the book.
Anyway, I need to clear my head of the series for a while - a week or three of reading something else - then it's a dive back in for FIRES OF HEAVEN.
For my break before continuing on with Brent Week's Lightbringer series, I've started reading The Legend of Eli Monpress by Rachel Aaron. It's an omnibus of the first three Eli Monpress novels. Just got stuck into The Spirit Thief, the first of the novels, at lunch.
Eli Monpress is the world's greatest thief, and a wizard to boot, who cares less about getting rich and more about making his name known by driving his bounty as high as he can. His companions are Josef, a swordsman, and Nico, a mysterious girl that I know nothing about so far.
Magic in this series doesn't so much come from a wizard's innate power, but rather from forging contracts with spirits (though the strength of their soul is apparently important for how powerful a spirit, and how many, they can make a contract with). Everything has a spirit, and a wizard is someone who can talk to these spirits at all times (as opposed to only when they're in their dying moments like non-wizards). They agree to share a portion of their soul's power with the spirits in exchange for service, and are known as spiritualists. The wizards create jewelry for the spirits to dwell within so that they always have them handy. Elemental and nature spirits seem to be favourites (Miranda, the spiritualist hunting Eli, has so far used spirits of stone, fire, wind, water and what appeared to be moss). The wizards who break the law of magic, that being that you cannot dominate or enslave a spirit rather than make a contract with it, are called enslavers.
Eli appears to be the special snowflake wizard of this world, because he of all people appears to be beloved of almost all spirits, and doesn't need to bind any of them to contracts. Instead he just chats to them and asks them for help, and they tend to oblige. This is considered unbelievable by other characters who know of it so far, as wizards spend huge amounts of time even getting the attention of spirits just to offer them a contract, and when they need to communicate in a hurry they use their bound spirits as an intermediary.
Enjoyable so far, will probably just read the first book and then go to The Blinding Knife. So far not a series I'm desperate to know what happens next in. There's a second collect, The Revenge of Eli Monpress, that collects the 4th and 5th novels (and possibly a novella as well, I'm not sure).
Tomorrow's bathtub read will be the Swedish translation of Le Petit Bijoux by this year's Nobel Prize winner, Patrick Modiano. It's only 128 pages, in a fairly large font, so if I use warm enough water it should be enough with one bath.
For some reason (probably Christmas shopping and me finding some 600-pages-but-so-unchallenging-prose-you're-halfway-through-in-an-hour book) this did not happen.
But, I did get around to reading it today, and recommend it warmly to everyone else. Tight prose in a character study that almost reads like a thriller as the young Thérèse deals with repressed memories brought back up to the surface when she spots a woman she thinks might be her mother "who died in Morocco" six years earlier.
Honor Among Thieves by James S.A. Corey. A Star Wars novel featuring Han Solo and Chewbacca taking place between episodes 4 and 5.
Hopefully there will be lots of scoundrel shenanigans! :-)
Started I Am Not a Serial Killer last night. Read almost 200 pages last night.
I think that means that I like it. The protagonist's internal monologue is amusingly similar to my own, which works well with a running joke that a friend and I have that I'm actually a sociopath because I don't get socializing and think about how he'd look nice without his skin.
Seems like the only reading I get done these days is on the bus to Brooklyn.
Finally polished off John Brown--[sniffle]--and re-read the 69 page Eleanor Burke Leacock introduction to Engels's The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.
Vive le Galt!
One for the sadly closed Sex Wars thread:
Change.org: Petitioning Hades, god of the Underworld: Send Persephone back to her mother
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Non-fiction, more or less:
'Lord Byron's Jackal - A Life of Edward John Trelawney' by David Crane. Mainly consists of gruesome accounts of massacre, starvation and Romantic bad behaviour during the Greek War of Independence and all the more interesting for it.
'Proofs of a Conspiracy' consists mainly of salacious tittle-tattle about the private lives of Weishaupt and co., who have spent an awful lot of time trying to lure the Fairer Sex into a life of Atheistical Libertinage and done little or no actual conspiring so far.
I also have 'Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense' by Francis Stufford to read, along with 'Kinesics: The Power of Silent Command' by Merlyn Gundiff ("What seems to be the trouble, Madam?" "Oooh, it's me Merlyn Gundiff again, doctor!").
* Learn to project unspoken orders that must be obeyed!
* Learn to read the innermost thoughts and desires of others!
* Learn how Silent Command brings you the love and admiration of others!
Standard text on Gor, I bet!
I finished The Spirit Thief (first book in The Legend of Eli Monpress series) the other day, and decided that it was quick and fun enough that I was going to read the second book before I got stuck into the rather longer and more time consuming The Blinding Knife.
So I started The Spirit Rebellion at lunch today. So far still very fun. The action hasn't really started yet, but I can tell it's gearing up for some big events, with the antagonist/reluctant ally from the first novel being set up for a fall, that I assume is going to result in her having to work with Eli again. There's also been some tantalizing hints as to why Eli is such a special snowflake wizard, who can just ask spirits to do what he wants without needing to bind them or use intermediaries. I'm guessing it has something to do with him being the favourite/beloved of someone who's so far been implied to be a goddess.
Started I Am Not a Serial Killer last night. Read almost 200 pages last night.
Finished it. Hilarious to tense and a bit paranoid to deeply disturbing. I think it lost a bit when the genre shifted. The middle bit felt a little like a kids' horror book, which didn't really fit with the opening or the conclusion.