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Hee hee!
Wow, that was just, wow.
Best F&GM story EVAR.
I'm greedily devouring Steve King's Wind Through the Keyhole, and am REALLY loving the "Skin Man" story. To blend four separate genres -- Western, horror, whodunit mystery, and fantasy/sci fi -- that seamlessly is a feat that's worth the cost of admission.
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Hee hee!
Wow, that was just, wow.
Where is the jug? Where is the jug!?
Heir to the Empire -- my first Star Wars novel
The War at the End of the World -- if you ever want to read about how demoralizing war can be, how devoid of honor and glory, how inane and useless it all is, this is your book
Crime and Punishment -- good look inside the mind of a killer (in the context of RPGs, the book makes me think how simplistic alignments really are)
Gave up on John Dies @ the End by David Wong.
Started up Timeless by Gail Carriger. Much funnier!
"The Lives of Tao", Wesley Chung
and
"Shambling Guide to New York", Mur Lafferty.
Laughing my head off (and scaring most commuters ).
In a more serious vein "Intelligence in War" , John Keegan
Currently reading "Men at Arms", by Terry Pratchett.
It's a very intriguing contrast to the previous work I read which was "A Game of Thrones" by George R. R. Martin.
All this Leiber chat was making me, er, want to read Leiber, so I did - Swords against Devilry and Swords of Lankhmar, skipping from one to the other.
What would happen these days if you gave the hero in your S&S novel a penchant for barely pubescent girls, I wonder?
Also started The Planets by Dana Sobel, but left it somewhere clever. Now I need some more non-fiction to read on the bus...
All this Leiber chat was making me, er, want to read Leiber, so I did - Swords against Devilry and Swords of Lankhmar, skipping from one to the other.
What would happen these days if you gave the hero in your S&S novel a penchant for barely pubescent girls, I wonder?
Also started The Planets by Dana Sobel, but left it somewhere clever. Now I need some more non-fiction to read on the bus...
Dude, you should read The Chronicles of Tornor, by Elizabeth A Lynne. The whole trilogy's very well written, but the consensual homosexual incest in book 2 might be a bit much for some people. (Yes, really.)
One of the things I find interesting about F&GM is that the first story was published in 1939 and last in 1988, and the various stories are the equal of anything published concurrently. Of course, "anything published concurrently" ranges from The Hobbit to Neuromancer; I guess I'm saying I'd give Fritz Leiber about a B, B- maybe.
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I just recently read through all of the F&GM stories - I thought a lot of the early ones were really good (mainly the ones that have been highlighted here), and I liked the full-length novella he did about the
I'm currently reading The Apocalypse Codex, the most recent book in the Laundry Files series. It's a fun read, and the series is full of cool ideas. I particularly like the idea that magic is done via mathematics, and if you do the computations in your head you risk opening mini-portals to elsewhere inside your brain.
I thought they were generally pretty dull, didn't find the love interests all that compelling, and thought they took some bizarre (and pointless) sexual tangents.
[Skips to the last two books.]
No, actually, I finished off that "Adept's Gambit" tale and realized that the next three F&GM books I've already read, so I put 'em down for a bit, read some more about Ahab, Jezebel, Jehu and friends, paged aimlessly through some Jeeves & Wooster and am thinking about starting The Atlan books by Jane Gaskell, mainly because she looks like she could've been the singer in some late 60s Britishiznoid acid folk band.
Well, I just finished The Bible Unearthed on Comrade Samnell's recommendation and I would further highly recommend it to anyone else interested in such shiznit.
In fact, I am going to try to make my anarcho-syndicalist with a background in Christian fundamentalism read it, but I think I'm going to have to read Before Atlantis in return. Which goes well with the Jane Gaskell, but, still...
Anyways, I admit that I skimmed some of the more hardcore archaeological stuff...and it still read better than The Bible.
Well, I just finished The Bible Unearthed on Comrade Samnell's recommendation and I would further highly recommend it to anyone else interested in such shiznit.
I was going to make a crack about infecting your mind with everything that passes through mine, but I think if I got someone else going through the three columns of tiny print Congressional Globe archives, either the police or the Bush administration would be knocking on my door pretty soon.
Also? That stuff is terribly, terribly organized. The archive I'm using is all scanned images, so you can't actually do a text search. There is a searchable index, but it's actually too exhaustive. I've had it return page references for Stephen Douglas that amount to him raising to answer a yes or no question. And their speeches are ridiculously digressive, full of weird circumlocutions and redundancies that would lead one to suspect they got paid by the word. I think my extended time with the Globe is one of the reasons my reading has gone to crap this past summer.
But it's educational. Sam Houston actually came off as a pretty solid dude, aside from the slaveholding. I'm reading John Bell right now and think I still hate his guts, though. They were the two Southerners who voted against the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Houston's speech is full of convincing concern for the Plains Indians (he married a Cherokee) and comes really close to making all the points that the free soil men made about the law. Bell comes off as an embittered oldster, insecure, defensive, and railing against abolitionists for pages for reasons I don't think I've yet read but which probably have to do with reelection. Or he was just an a$+&#*& trying to seize Calhoun's hidden volcano plantation so he could use the slave-powered laser to blow up the moon.
I was going to make a crack about infecting your mind with everything that passes through mine, but I think if I got someone else going through the three columns of tiny print Congressional Globe archives, either the police or the Bush administration would be knocking on my door pretty soon.Also? That stuff is terribly, terribly organized. The archive I'm using is all scanned images, so you can't actually do a text search. There is a searchable index, but it's actually too exhaustive. I've had it return page references for Stephen Douglas that amount to him raising to answer a yes or no question. And their speeches are ridiculously digressive, full of weird circumlocutions and redundancies that would lead one to suspect they got paid by the word. I think my extended time with the Globe is one of the reasons my reading has gone to crap this past summer.
But it's educational. Sam Houston actually came off as a pretty solid dude, aside from the slaveholding. I'm reading John Bell right now and think I still hate his guts, though. They were the two Southerners who voted against the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Houston's speech is full of convincing concern for the Plains Indians (he married a Cherokee) and comes really close to making all the points that the free soil men made about the law. Bell comes off as an embittered oldster, insecure, defensive, and railing against abolitionists for pages for reasons I don't think I've yet read but which probably have to do with reelection. Or he was just an a*&@&#~ trying to seize Calhoun's hidden volcano plantation so he could use the slave-powered laser to blow up the moon.
Speeches in that period were often judged by length as if quantity added to their quality or you weren't truly committed to something if you couldn't rattle on for hours about it. Hence the speech patterns you noted. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was criticized for being scandalously short; as if it failed to meet the solemnity of the occasion. Until people read it, re-read it and pondered what he said.
Speeches in that period were often judged by length as if quantity added to their quality or you weren't truly committed to something if you couldn't rattle on for hours about it. Hence the speech patterns you noted. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was criticized for being scandalously short; as if it failed to meet the solemnity of the occasion. Until people read it,...
Yeah, I know. Doesn't make them fun to read. :)
What books are you currently reading?
I'm reading black libraries Hammer and Bolter II. It's a collection of short-stories from the warhammer universe (Fantasy and 40K)
And I read a lot of pathfinder rules these days to find a pc concept that seems fun to play, moderately competent and doesn't get shot down by the gm.
Speeches in that period were often judged by length as if quantity added to their quality or you weren't truly committed to something if you couldn't rattle on for hours about it. Hence the speech patterns you noted. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was criticized for being scandalously short; as if it failed to meet the solemnity of the occasion. Until people read it,...
Yeah, I know. Doesn't make them fun to read. :)
Full agreement on that. Wading through those things is painful. Does make you appreciate the occasional gem like the Gettysburg Address even more though :)
I know snake men are a pretty old meme in the history of myth and fantasy, but, still, I look at this 1968 (I think) cover to The Serpent and can't help but feel I've discovered the origins of the yuan-ti.
Full agreement on that. Wading through those things is painful. Does make you appreciate the occasional gem like the Gettysburg Address even more though :)
It would if I hadn't been heavily overdosed on the speech. I can still swing Lincoln's second inaugural, though. So that's one village bike of Civil War oration. :)
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I just recently read through all of the F&GM stories - I thought a lot of the early ones were really good (mainly the ones that have been highlighted here), and I liked the full-length novella he did about the ** spoiler omitted ** but the last two books left me cold. I thought they were generally pretty dull, didn't find the love interests all that compelling, and thought they took some bizarre (and pointless) sexual tangents.
And yet, for all the sexual tangents, none of them ever address the blatent homoerotic tension between the two.
Product of its time and all...
Sometimes two dudes bangin' barely pubescent hawt chicks together is just two dudes bangin' barely pubescent hawt chicks together.
Although...
[Imagines fan fiction centered around Faf's "Graywand" and the Mouser responding with his famous "widdershins"]
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Hmmm... Ningauble/Sheelba?
Just imagine the cheesy dialogue...
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All right, Comrade A, you turned me on to this one: The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. I had to scare up a copy. It's too fascinating for words, especially because of all the archaeological training I've had.
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Don't thank me, Citizen Jade, thank Comrade Samnell. Enjoy the book!
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I'm halfway through Asimov's Second Foundation. Even with the explanation that the First Foundation didn't develop any psychology, I find the First Foundationers in Part II unpardonably naïve. If it takes a 14-years-old girl to teach them how to do "spy stuff" then the Foundation is truly lost. I'm glad Asimov doesn't tell us who to root for, but I'm almost wishing that the Mule wasn't defeated in Part I, since at least he had some character.
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I finished Asimov's Second Foundation. I really liked the ending, and the characterization improved on both books 1 and 2. The naïve Foundationers have a plot reason for being naïve so I no longer find it entirely implausible or unpardonable.
I think I'll take a break from Asimov now. On the sci-fi front, I want to read Card's Ender's Game before the movie comes out.
Die A Little by Megan Abbott. A hard-boiled detective novel. POV narrator is a school teacher with a brother in the DA's office as an investigator. He marries a dame with a mysterious past.
Don't thank me, Citizen Jade, thank Comrade Samnell. Enjoy the book!
Oops! My bad. Thank you kindly, Comrade Samnell. And I am enjoying it. Being from the Midwest, I've known any number of people who are inclined to take the Bible literally, and too much archaeology has been done for the purpose of vindicating it. It's a pleasure to see that critical thinking seems to be emerging in that field at last.
Thief's Gamble by Juliet McKenna. Quite enjoyable so far - a wandering thief/con-artist/cardshark is pressganged into helping a wizard and his accomplices to gather artefacts from the fallen empire (there's always an old fallen empire, isn't there?) and I'm expecting hi-jinks to ensue any page now.
Also finished off Shattered Pillars by Elizabeth Bear - the second part in her series of steppe-fantasy about the would-be Khagan Temur and his wizard ally, the former princess Samarkar - and I've got to say, Temur's mare, Bansh, is my favourite fictional horse ever.
After my weekend LIVE!! politrolling, I managed to pick up:
The Black Count by Tom Reiss, about Alexandre Dumas (grandpere - the general, in other words). A highly praised (and deservedly so) book about a pretty admirable man.
Elminster's Forgotten Realms, which I haven't started yet
and
Taschen's book on Eric Stanton. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
Zipped through Andre Norton's Trey of Swords -- love those old Witch World novels! -- and am happily devouring Lee Child's latest Reacher novel. I like how, after Tom Cruise considerately set the movie in Pittsburgh so that I could visit all the shooting locations (the source novel takes place in Indiana), Child goes ahead and actually sets part of this latest novel in Pittsburgh.
After my weekend LIVE!! politrolling
Vive le Galt!
, I managed to pick up:
The Black Count by Tom Reiss, about Alexandre Dumas (grandpere - the general, in other words). A highly praised (and deservedly so) book about a pretty admirable man.
[Scribbles furiously adding another to the (long) list]
Don't thank me, Citizen Jade, thank Comrade Samnell. Enjoy the book!Oops! My bad. Thank you kindly, Comrade Samnell. And I am enjoying it. Being from the Midwest, I've known any number of people who are inclined to take the Bible literally, and too much archaeology has been done for the purpose of vindicating it. It's a pleasure to see that critical thinking seems to be emerging in that field at last.
You're welcome. :)
I've heard secondhand from people on the edges of the field that archaeology touching on the period and area is generally considered a bit of a laughingstock that archaeologists who just want to go about their lives and not deal with crazies prefer to avoid. It's a little bit unfair, of course. Respectable archaeologists gave up on a historical Moses and Patriarchs back in the 70s.
I've heard secondhand from people on the edges of the field that archaeology touching on the period and area is generally considered a bit of a laughingstock that archaeologists who just want to go about their lives and not deal with crazies prefer to avoid. It's a little bit unfair, of course. Respectable archaeologists gave up on a historical Moses and Patriarchs back in the 70s.
That was true while the archaeology was being performed by classically-trained western scholars (for which, read the Victorian/Imperialist British in Palestine and the Catholic Church). It was partially a case of having social and political axes to grind, added to the idea that "What worked for Heinrich Schliemann - an untrained, jumped-up shopkeeper - should work especially well when applied by properly educated archaeologists". Plus, the "crazies", who were and, alas, remain literalists with respect to the interpretation of what they deem Holy Writ. Beginning about 25-30 years ago, a new generation of Israeli archaeologists, trained in Israel, started exploring on their own heritage, just as similar work started to be done in Egypt under the direction of Drs. Zahi Hawass and Selima Bikhram.
As for the question of an historical Moses, that's still hotly debated. There is evidence from contemporary Egyptian records - temple and tomb carvings - that something major happened during the reign of Ramesses the Great (Ramesses II, 1303 BC – July or August 1213 BC), which resulted in the death of Ramesses' oldest son. It occurred during a minor military incident in the Nile delta. What's particularly suggestive is that up until then, Canaanite settlers in Egypt were mentioned occasionally; after that point in Ramesses' reign, they disappear from the record entirely. The next reference to Canaan occurs several decades after Ramesses' death, and refers to kings of the region. Whether there was a Moses involved isn't at all clear, but the name "Moses" is phonetically similar to and means almost exactly the same thing as the Kemetic name "Ahmose": to be discovered, to be revealed. I'm keeping an eye on the whole schemozzle as well as I can through the journals, but what with the whole area melting down, it ain't easy.
Whew! Tune in next week for more fun and adventure on our next episode of "You Dug It Up, You Figure It Out", featuring hordes of squabbling archaeologists, the Sensuous Mama Cass, and, of course, Cosmo. See you then!
Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre.
Táin Bó Cúailnge, unfortunately in English translation. Makes me wish I spoke Gaelic!
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The Insides of My Eyelids by zzzzzz
Finished The Serpent last night (although, from what I've read, the second book The Dragon was ripped from the first, so they were originally intended as one volume).
So, The Serpent was written in 1963 when Ms. Gaskell was all of 22. It's set in a fantasy (no magic yet, but there are giant flightless birds to ride around on and some of the characters appear to be some kind of yuan-ti) South America with strong memories, connections and a desire to invade Atlantis.
When I learned it was written by a 22-year old woman 50 years ago, I was looking forward to a fantasy novel from a female perspective, you know, with lots of ladies' maids and love triangles and different upper-class people snubbing each other. Well, I got that and a whole lot more.
So, it started out pretty Tombs of Atuan-y with a young woman named Cija living in a tower, sequestered by her mother, the Dictatress, and only coming into contact with her army of maids and nurses. This quickly changes when she is given to the General of an invading army as a hostage, with instructions from her mother to seduce and then assassinate the General. However, spending seventeen virginal years locked in a tower with no contact with men (in fact, being told there were no men left) doesn't lend itself well to seduction. Yada yada yada, all kinds of soap opera-y stuff between her, the General, the General's other lady friends, the other hostages--in particular a young man named Smahil who wants to do it with Cija--etc., etc.
So, ths being the 1960s and before women's lib, haughty, superior Cija is headed for a fall and, of course, the only way to chastise haughty, superior female types is
More adventures, she passes herself off as a boy for the rest of the book, runs into Smahil again, and he
Either way, I can't put it down 'cuz I want to know what's going to happen next, but the writing is wildly uneven. Some of it is pretty top-notch and some of it...isn't. I did read, however, that China Mieville listed one of her (other) books as one of the top ten "weird fiction" books of all time, though.
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In other news, Comrade Samnell recommendation #2: The Story of American Freedom by everyone's favorite red-diaper historian, Eric Foner.
Currently reading:
Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett
The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, by Edward Luttwak
In the Beggining: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
Currently reading:
The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, by Edward Luttwak
One of his recent(ish) pieces in the NYT has provoked much thinking about Syria. Synergistic weirdiosity!
Opening of Gaskell's The Dragon:
"Smahil lifted me on to the saddle and solicitously bundled his wet coat round me. He mounted and, cradling me before him, rode down the steep path.
"His arms were very tender. We had not spoken a word. I wondered if he were embarrassed. I felt drowsy and innocent. I had one hand on his black lapel, and felt rocked like a child. I knew that I am at least as safe with Smahil as no other woman can ever be.
"I looked up at him.
"His face, which he had cleansed, seemed to hold an intense gravity. His lips were closed, his flaxen hair, darkened by the teeming rain, was plastered in thick lank strips to his head. He peered down at me. The bulkiness of the coat had slipped a little. He tucked it round me again, his muscles hard and warm through the sodden shirt. I was held closer as he kissed my hair again and again.
"'You belong to me at last.'"
I guess it was the latter.
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Shakespeare's Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages, 1337-1485, by John Julius Norwich.
I'm currently in the middle of King Richard II's reign. The "Merciless" Parliament has just executed his favorite courtiers. Shakespeare's play doesn't show up till the end of his reign, so it's a way to go before I see some comparisons between Shakespeare and the historical sources.
Yesterday I was socialisming it up at the Worcester Public Library, which, once again, had wicked awesomely stocked "Books for Sale" bin:
As if I need more books!
o_O
Let me know the next time you will be at the Worcester Library, maybe we can do lunch. I work in Worcester. :D
Also: I finished Pride and Prejudice. I enjoyed it immensely. I would have hated to read it in high school.
I'm reading Red Nails by Robert E Howard. Robert E Howard's Conan is... awesome. I'm glad I found a nice slug of his stuff on Project Gutenberg.
-Aaron
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Great, just what I need, competition at the WPL.
Red Nails is wikkid ossum!
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Still rocking through the Tain. Cuchulain is one seriously bad mofo! When he finally gets his weapons and chariot as a kid (after breaking most of the ones they offer him and demanding ones suitable for a warrior), he goes off and attacks the first town across the border, where he kills their champions. But that only whets his rage; heading back home, he's still under the warp-frenzy, and the men of Ulster realize he'll kill all them, too, if they don't do something quick! So they send out all the ladies, naked -- and the insane Irish nudity taboo is so powerfully ingrained that Cuchulain is stunned and helpless; he can't do anything but stare down at his chariot and pray that they go away. The Ulstermen grab him and douse him in vats of water until his rage abates and they can let him go.
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