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hawkwing_lbBooks 2008: 105-112:
105. Chris Moriarty, Spin Control
Moriarty writes with confidence of espionage, politics, evolving technologies and emergent AI. Her touch with human relationships is slightly less deft, but this is a very interesting novel, full of energy and complexity and science.
106. Jack McDevitt, The Engines of God.
Archaeology in space. No one else does it that I've found, not as well as McDevitt, and his prose ain't nothing to sneeze at, either. He knows the archaeological mind, that man.
107. Jack McDevitt, Chindi.
...Okay. Are we sure this is the same McDevitt? Because, man. Hello problemmatic issues with gender. Hello loaded vocabulary about women and men and femininity and should the guys go first into danger? I mean, this is all sideline to the actual story, which is more of the same archaeology in space that he does so well, and there's enough counter in there that I get the feeling that McDevitt is probably not a girls-should-be-girls guy.
But, um. There were a couple of moments that were kinda weird.
108. Samuel R. Delany, Babel-17
A deserved classic. Delany is, of course, a master of the use of language, and one day I must get my hands on Dhalgren and the Neveryon books. But really, a deserved classic. By a master. What else is there to say?
109. John Scalzi, Zoe's Tale.
To be honest, I don't remember an awful lot of what went on in The Last Colony. Doesn't matter. This is a perfectly readable science fiction not-exactly adventure book.
110. Terry Pratchett, Making Money.
This is not Pratchett at his best. It's not up to the same standard as the last half-dozen Discworld installments. Vetinari appears to have had a personality transplant, and there are half a dozen little oddments that don't add up. But it is still Pratchett, and it stars Moist von Lipwig, and it is Discworld. And Pratchett on an off day is still better than ninety percent of the world at their best.
111. Publius (or Gaius; no one's quite sure) Cornelius Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome, translated by Michael Grant. Non-fiction, for classical values of 'non-fiction'.
Well, this is one of our very important sources for the early Principate. The surviving manuscript has most of the reign of Tiberius, part of the reign of Claudius, and most of the reign of Nero. Gaius (Caligula) is missing; a pity, really: he sounds like the kind of... interesting character you wouldn't want to meet.
Tacitus's style is to enumerate the more important decisions of the senate and the emperor, religious matters, and campaigns, yearly, except for the campaigns, where he sometimes compresses the events of several years into one narrative. His animus against Tiberius and Agrippina Elder is fairly obvious; also his dislike of the imperial freedmen and wives of Claudius. Under Nero, the Annals becomes something of a catalogue of executions. It makes for interesting reading.
There are whole commentaries on Tacitus, so I won't venture to say more than this. As for the translation, mine is the Penguin edition from 1996, with Grant's translation, which largely dates from 1956. It's a clear, readable translation, though his avoidance of the term 'freedman/woman' occasionally seems stretched, and his use of modern names for some geographical features slightly jarring. The index and 'further reading' section are reasonably extensive: there are also maps, list of placenames and their modern equivalents where known, and a family tree for the imperial family's main branches over several generations. Although most of those branches end under one emperor or another.
112. Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilisations (London and New York, 2007). Non-fiction.
Despite the subtitle, this is not a book about how Judea and Rome were complete opposites in every respect. Instead, it's a thoughtful assessment of the many similarities and occasional differences between the Judeans and the Romans, and how, in the final summation, the destruction of the Temple and the prevention of its rebuilding, and the demonisation of the Judeans, owed more to the internal politics of the Roman elite, the incompetence of the procurator of Judea in 66 CE, and how the Flavians and their successors needed to legitimise their claim to power by looking back to the military victory in the Judean War of 66-70 CE.
It's a very thorough assessment of both cultures, and also of how the responses to the revolts and disturbances post-70CE, including the revolt of Simon Bar Kosiba, and the growth of the Christian church among the gentiles before Constantine and the Christianisation of the empire under Constantine and his successors, led to the position of the Judeans as a people without a homeland and a group within Roman and later Roman Christian society which was looked down upon.
105. Chris Moriarty, Spin Control
Moriarty writes with confidence of espionage, politics, evolving technologies and emergent AI. Her touch with human relationships is slightly less deft, but this is a very interesting novel, full of energy and complexity and science.
106. Jack McDevitt, The Engines of God.
Archaeology in space. No one else does it that I've found, not as well as McDevitt, and his prose ain't nothing to sneeze at, either. He knows the archaeological mind, that man.
107. Jack McDevitt, Chindi.
...Okay. Are we sure this is the same McDevitt? Because, man. Hello problemmatic issues with gender. Hello loaded vocabulary about women and men and femininity and should the guys go first into danger? I mean, this is all sideline to the actual story, which is more of the same archaeology in space that he does so well, and there's enough counter in there that I get the feeling that McDevitt is probably not a girls-should-be-girls guy.
But, um. There were a couple of moments that were kinda weird.
108. Samuel R. Delany, Babel-17
A deserved classic. Delany is, of course, a master of the use of language, and one day I must get my hands on Dhalgren and the Neveryon books. But really, a deserved classic. By a master. What else is there to say?
109. John Scalzi, Zoe's Tale.
To be honest, I don't remember an awful lot of what went on in The Last Colony. Doesn't matter. This is a perfectly readable science fiction not-exactly adventure book.
110. Terry Pratchett, Making Money.
This is not Pratchett at his best. It's not up to the same standard as the last half-dozen Discworld installments. Vetinari appears to have had a personality transplant, and there are half a dozen little oddments that don't add up. But it is still Pratchett, and it stars Moist von Lipwig, and it is Discworld. And Pratchett on an off day is still better than ninety percent of the world at their best.
111. Publius (or Gaius; no one's quite sure) Cornelius Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome, translated by Michael Grant. Non-fiction, for classical values of 'non-fiction'.
Well, this is one of our very important sources for the early Principate. The surviving manuscript has most of the reign of Tiberius, part of the reign of Claudius, and most of the reign of Nero. Gaius (Caligula) is missing; a pity, really: he sounds like the kind of... interesting character you wouldn't want to meet.
Tacitus's style is to enumerate the more important decisions of the senate and the emperor, religious matters, and campaigns, yearly, except for the campaigns, where he sometimes compresses the events of several years into one narrative. His animus against Tiberius and Agrippina Elder is fairly obvious; also his dislike of the imperial freedmen and wives of Claudius. Under Nero, the Annals becomes something of a catalogue of executions. It makes for interesting reading.
There are whole commentaries on Tacitus, so I won't venture to say more than this. As for the translation, mine is the Penguin edition from 1996, with Grant's translation, which largely dates from 1956. It's a clear, readable translation, though his avoidance of the term 'freedman/woman' occasionally seems stretched, and his use of modern names for some geographical features slightly jarring. The index and 'further reading' section are reasonably extensive: there are also maps, list of placenames and their modern equivalents where known, and a family tree for the imperial family's main branches over several generations. Although most of those branches end under one emperor or another.
112. Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilisations (London and New York, 2007). Non-fiction.
Despite the subtitle, this is not a book about how Judea and Rome were complete opposites in every respect. Instead, it's a thoughtful assessment of the many similarities and occasional differences between the Judeans and the Romans, and how, in the final summation, the destruction of the Temple and the prevention of its rebuilding, and the demonisation of the Judeans, owed more to the internal politics of the Roman elite, the incompetence of the procurator of Judea in 66 CE, and how the Flavians and their successors needed to legitimise their claim to power by looking back to the military victory in the Judean War of 66-70 CE.
It's a very thorough assessment of both cultures, and also of how the responses to the revolts and disturbances post-70CE, including the revolt of Simon Bar Kosiba, and the growth of the Christian church among the gentiles before Constantine and the Christianisation of the empire under Constantine and his successors, led to the position of the Judeans as a people without a homeland and a group within Roman and later Roman Christian society which was looked down upon.
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 07:11 pm (UTC)Now that I think of it, actually, Spin Control rather reminded me of a Robert Ludlum novel. Except with science fiction.
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Date: 2008-09-09 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 07:08 pm (UTC)I haven't read Eternity Road, I don't think. I only started reading him quite recently, with Polaris and its sequel, and then discovered the second Priscilla Hutchins novel.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 06:05 pm (UTC)I do like Moist. But I would like to see more of Adora Belle :-)
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 06:32 pm (UTC)