I just finished "Windhaven" by GRRM and Lisa Tuttle. It was pretty good -- I've never read the Pern books, but it had some of the elements that I understand are in those books. The plot and characterization were both good. I knew it was a GRRM book by the descriptions of food (he can't describe a meal in less than a paragraph) and an off-hand mention of an ugly, clever dwarf. Yes, I know "Windhaven" was written well before Tyrion Lannister saw print, but who knows how long that idea gestated within his brain.
The Story of American Freedom by Eric Foner is a pretty fun read, although I don't think I'm learning anything new. But I'm only at World War I.
(Btw, I bought The Story of American Freedom as a hardcover for $2.75 at the Worcester Public Library.)
The Dragon by Jane Gaskell continues to fascinate. More crazy ass shiznit, with Cija and Smahil setting up a domestic partnership out of Tennessee Williams or something, and then another dramatic twist of fate leaves our leading lady stowed away on a river barge that dumps her out in the Temple City of His Superlativity, the God of the Southerners where she fears she will be slain as an idolater. Oh, did I mention that She's a Goddess?
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Oh, I forgot: The World of Jeeves (also bought at the WPL)
Favorite sentence thus far: "'Hullo, 'allo, 'allo--what, what?'"
Master of the language, he is.
Protector by CJ Cherryh. Book 14 of her Foreigner series. :-D
Coming in on the last chapter of The Dragon and not only does
When Smahil finds out, he doesn't particularly mind.
Hawt!
Yikes.
All I've got is 'London Recruits' (ed. Ken Keable), about assorted Brits trying to help bring down Apartheid in the the '70s, and vol. 3 of Time of the Twins.
'The Black Count' is over and done with, sadly, and now one of my favourite books EVER!!!
Mentioning On The Beach in another thread reminded me of Nevil Shute. OTB is not my favorite of his novels, so I went and scared up my (very ancient and crumbling) copy of An Old Captivity. Aaahh. Okay, it's not angsty literature, but it makes me smile.
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Coming in on the last chapter of The Dragon and not only does ** spoiler omitted **
When Smahil finds out, he doesn't particularly mind.
Hawt!
Doodlebug, in the editions you're reading, does Cija go through the underwater plexiglass to Aztlan (or however it's spelled) to learn how many kisses long Zerds neck is at the end of book one or two?
'Cause I swear to god, I got to the point with the transparent undersea tunnel that Cija (pronounced See Ya) rode her riding bird though, just to poop wherever it might, with no means to clean up after it, and I was all, "Hey Jane Gaskell, the riding bird may have given a s**t, but I don't!" and threw that book across the room and didn't read any of the sequels.
Seriously man, just read The Jewels of Aptor, it's better!
Well, I've got less than thirty pages to go, but if there is a transparent undersea tunnel, I don't know, thanks for the spoiler, Dicey!!!
Regardless, I, like Ums, give a shiznit and I hope to finish the whole series.
I've got Atlan but not the next two--I'm planning a trip to Boston's used bookstores to hunt down the other two (and those missing Corum books, and more Thongor).
The Jewels of Aptor I'm holding off on for now because it's really short and can be easily smuggled into UPS and when Xmastime comes and I am moved to Sugar Candy Mountain I plan on reading tons of thin sci-fi books.
Oh, I forgot: The World of Jeeves (also bought at the WPL)
Favorite sentence thus far: "'Hullo, 'allo, 'allo--what, what?'"
Master of the language, he is.
Oh yeah, I forgot, I got The World of Jeeves at the Worcester Public Library for either 50 cents or a dollar.
Still groovin' on the Tain. Cuchulainn has to fight with his foster-brother Ferdiad, who knows all the same feats except the Gae Bolga, and has tough natural armor of horn for some reason. Medb gets Ferdiad to fight Cucuc by offering him treasure, lands, cattle, her body, and her daughter; when he shows up to the fight, Cuchulainn's all like, "Yeah, that daughter's already been given to like 50 dudes I've killed, so don't think she's a real inducement, bro," which pisses off Ferdiad something fierce.
I find it sad that Medb's daughter Findabair otherwise has no personality in the epic -- she's nothing but a walking bribe and serving-wench.
Anyway, Cucuc's two invisible warrior friends from Fairyland come to help him, but Ferdiad kills them, and stabs Cucuc through the chest. Things looking bad
Doodlebug, in the editions you're reading, does Cija go through the underwater plexiglass to Aztlan (or however it's spelled) to learn how many kisses long Zerds neck is at the end of book one or two?
Now that I've finished the book, I am amazed at the detail of your memory, Dicey.
Well, I hate to say it, but I can't seem to find either my Wodehouse nor my Foner, so I guess I'm just going to keep plowing through Gaskell.
Seems like there should be more available about her and her books online, but I can't find much that doesn't involve China Mieville:
China Miéville: Jane Gaskell; Marion Fox. I’m sure there are others, but those are the two who leap to my mind.
You know, my issue with The Serpent (It's the only thing of her's I've read; apparently she published her first work when she was fourteen, and I certainly did not, so who can't write now, Dicey?) is that it was published with a year of Picnic on Paradise. I read Picnic on Paradise, was absolutely blown away, picked up The Serpent and was significantly less than blown away. Given the differences in length of the two books, and the differences between the main characters' personalities, reading them one after the other is like reading a Goofus and Gallant collection with three times the number of Goofus pages.
What am I reading right now? Nothing, but I bought The Hollow Crown on DVD; that junk is nut-job level bananas!
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What am I reading right now? Nothing, but I bought The Hollow Crown on DVD; that junk is nut-job level bananas!
Dicey! Join me in the adventure that is Shakespeare's Henriad!
I'm reading:
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 Henry IV's reign. Richard II has been deposed and now the Percys are rebelling, and Prince Hal is a wastrel. Flastaff is da bomb. It's interesting to see the changes Shakespeare made to not offend the Oldcastles inadvertently offending the legacy of Sir. Fastolf.
I just started The Hole Behind Midnight by Clinton J Boomer. I picked it up from the Crooked kickstarter. I'll be reading Crooked by Richard Pett next.
The Hole Behind Midnight is... weird, but good so far. The language and content is salty (to say the least), but the title page does say:
-a story of the 25th hour-
by Clinton J. Boomer
(for adults only)
The idea is that certain folks can access an extra pocket of time (the 25th hour) that occurs between 12:00:00 and 12:00:01. I'm getting a Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko (which is worth a read) feel from the novel.
The main character is quite a character, but I think he may be an unreliable narrator. We'll see as I get farther into the story.
-Aaron
What am I reading right now? Nothing, but I bought The Hollow Crown on DVD; that junk is nut-job level bananas!
Dicey! Join me in the adventure that is Shakespeare's Henriad!
I'm reading:
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 Henry IV's reign. Richard II has been deposed and now the Percys are rebelling, and Prince Hal is a wastrel. Flastaff is da bomb. It's interesting to see the changes Shakespeare made to not offend the Oldcastles inadvertently offending the legacy of Sir. Fastolf.
Dude, have you gotten to the Harry on Harry violence with the duel between Harry Percy and Prince Hal? Pure awesome!
I was watching them fight, with Falstaff playing dead in the background, and was like, "Dude, this is just like when Eowyn fought the Witch King, and Falstaff's like Merry!" And then I said to myself, "Hey Dicey, if you're describing Shakespeare in terms of Lord of the Rings, the American education system has failed you . . ."
Later, on one of the back-up features, Tom Hiddleston was talking about the character development from Prince Hal the wastrel, to King Henry V, who defeated the French at Agincourt and occupied Normandy and I was all, "Dude, spoiler alert please, I haven't seen that one!"
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Henry was a pissant little shiznit who betrayed all his friends. (Poor Bardolph!)
Down with him and Vive le Galt!
In other anglophilic news, finished my volume of Wodehouse and the second season of Downton Abbey. Comparing the two, I wonder what all the fuss over Bates is about.
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Henry was a pissant little shiznit who betrayed all his friends. (Poor Bardolph!)
Down with him and Vive le Galt!
Spoiler for Dicey's sake, because you know I wouldn't want him to learn any history before he is ready for it.
I totes agree that Flastaff gets a raw deal from Hal in the play. In "real history" I'm not so concerned since Fastolf fought against my main girl, Joan of Arc.
I've got this other book that describes the 100 yrs. war in detail...not to be read while eating! Even Norwich, who has a Title and is pretty Anglophilic as a result, admits that Henry V makes Sherman's march to the sea look like a cakewalk. If it happened nowadays they'd send Hal to the Hague for war crimes.
Down with Hank!
"How yet resolves the governor of the town?
This is the latest parle we will admit;
Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves;
Or like to men proud of destruction
Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,
A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
If I begin the battery once again,
I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
Till in her ashes she lie buried.
The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants.
What is it then to me, if impious war,
Array'd in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
Enlink'd to waste and desolation?
What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
Of hot and forcing violation?
What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil
As send precepts to the leviathan
To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil and villany.
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls,
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid,
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?"
You're saying King Harry should have sacked the town without offering a chance to surrender? I understand you're personally attached to Bardolph, but if you're willing to sacrifice an entire town just so they guy you like won't be hanged, the king isn't the tyrannical one! :P
Houdini's Magic, by er, Houdini, which has lots of useful (and probably thoroughly out of date) info on skeleton keys in it.
Anybody managed to find any Charles Saunders books recently?
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You're saying King Harry should have sacked the town without offering a chance to surrender? I understand you're personally attached to Bardolph, but if you're willing to sacrifice an entire town just so they guy you like won't be hanged, the king isn't the tyrannical one! :P
I think Hal should have sacked his f%$!ing war-mongering clerics is what I think.
Down with ye olde Merry England!
Vive le Galt!
Bardolph being executed for looting a church doesn't make the clerics war-mongers, Doodlebug.
Wait, like cleric clerics? I didn't even know Shakespeare played D&D!
Bardolph being executed for looting a church doesn't make the clerics war-mongers, Doodlebug.
Wait, like cleric clerics? I didn't even know Shakespeare played D&D!
All I'm sayin' is I think Hal and Zerd would have gotten along together well.
Speaking of which,
This shiznit's hawt! It's like V.C. Andrews and D&D, I love it!
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Well, sure, they were both kings; toss in Tywin Lannister and that's a crowd I'd gladly hobnob with!
Now that I think of it, it might of been when I described Cija as "the ideal of female aristocracy" that Lady Dice and I started sleeping seperate bedrooms. No, wait, I tell a lie; it was after the whole "It's not cheating if you're with a goblin" argument.
I've gone back to re-reading the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. It is mainly to wash the horrid taste of her 6th book in the series, Tongues of Serpents, out of my brain. That thing was so terrible.
Anybody managed to find any Charles Saunders books recently?
[Adds to list]
In other news, I finished the Foner. Liked it a lot. I was going to go on to the third Comrade Samnell recommendation on my list, but all the above talk about Lancastrian douchebags has made me think of picking up some Christopher Hill. We'll see, we'll see.
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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.
Woah, the (kinda) synergistic weirdiosity is freaking me out!
Anybody managed to find any Charles Saunders books recently?[Adds to list]
In other news, I finished the Foner. Liked it a lot. I was going to go on to the third Comrade Samnell recommendation on my list, but all the above talk about Lancastrian douchebags has made me think of picking up some Christopher Hill. We'll see, we'll see.
** spoiler omitted **
I'm still reading The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England. Still fun, but between the daily reading for the blog and various other stuff I haven't had the time. Totally unfair. A man man in a blue box needs to come fix this.
Currently working through the chapter on food and a bit nauseated by the constant refrain of eels. You'd think the English had to eat a pound of the things every day just to keep the roads clear.
Going to have to go back to Freehling soon, though. I think I'm almost done with Kansas-Nebraska.
The Crazyladies of Pearl Street, Trevanian's last novel, a largely autobiographical work about growing up poor in Albany, NY during the depression.
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The next volume of Jane Gaskell with another subtle Boris Vallejo cover
Also, I don't believe I posted about how awesome I thought Wodehouse was. I'd like to thank all of the Paizonians (starting, I believe, with Geraint Elberion who mocked me, Kirth Gersen, Limeylongears and possibly others) who recommended him, what, what?
I read the intro to The World Turned Upside Down and, in it, Hill was talking about how he was going to focus on the Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, etc., and not deal with the broader outlines of the English Civil War. He then recommended one Pride's Purge by Prof. David Underdown as a recent (well, in the early 1970s) book on the subject, so now, while I am plowing through Cija's latest bunch of adventures I am waiting to see which book the interlibrary loan system will deliver first: Pride's Purge or Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliott Friedman.
Doodlebug, in my continual efforts to drag this thread away from literacy, have you seen the Jeeves and Wooster tv series, starring Hugh Laurie as Bertie and Stephen Fry as Jeeves?
Look, I read a book once. It was blue.
Only this one:
Comrade Bingo, Pt. 1
I'll probably Netflix the entire series, eventually, but as of now, my anglophilia is being sated with Downton.
Rook by Daniel O'Mallory.
"Guns at Last Light" by Rick Atkinson (Book 3 of the Liberation Trilogy). Who needs fantasy when History puts up a better story! :D
I have kind of a complicated question about the mess leading up to 1066, so anybody who can direct me to sources about the period, please let me know. I'll try to be coherent here. As I understand it, Godwin of Wessex (Harold Godwinson's father) was one of the most ambitious political movers of the period, and not above getting his hands very, very dirty. He certainly arranged the marriages of his daughters to further his own aims, which leads me to ask, what about his sons' marriages? Specifically, Harold's union with Edith the Fair was not a "church" marriage, although it was apparently accepted without any quibbles by the secular powers of the day, and Harold did in fact marry Edith of Mercia in a church ceremony. So, would Harold's marriage to Edith the Fair (and their several children) have threatened Godwin's ambitions, and, if so, why did he let it stand?
Rook by Daniel O'Mallory.
Actually, The Rook by Daniel O'Malley.
:-P
Also, do you think reading a trilogy all at once is better or worse than spreading it out with other books in between the trilogy? I usually read a hardcover novel every 2 weeks or so.
All things being equal (things like, do I have access to all of the books, are they all written, etc.), I prefer to read a series of novels all the way through. I have recently found with both Conan and Faf/Gray Mouser, though, that serieses made up of short stories I prefer to intersperse some other books in the way.
On the other hand, though, I rarely read one book at a time.
I can only focus on one book at a time.
Literally.
I don't have wonky chameleon eyes that can focus on two different things at the same time!
;-)
Being a goblin has its advantages...
So, since last checking in, Cija
Her ambivalence towards her own children (although I grant you, one is the product of incest) is pretty fascinating, given she was either pregnant or a new mother when she wrote the book (at least, going by the scant biographical info I've been able to find).
I keep going back and forth on whether I think these books are awesome or are trash. I think I'm leaning towards the former.
Also read The Book of Ezra today. I wish they were all 10 pages long...