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hawkwing_lbWhen you could be safe at home, free from all dangers?
In between dealing with bureaucratic crap from TCD and the body that deals with my grant applications, trying to stay alive and exercised, holding my mum's hand at the dentist, and being a lazy sod who watches too many episodes of Dark Angel all at once, I've been reading.
Surprise surprise.
Books:
Jo Walton, The Prize in the Game. Set in the same world as The King's Peace, which I've read, and The King's Name, which I haven't. Imaginative and talented use of the Táin mythos, with extra points for hitting all the right notes. Perhaps it would hit someone who didn't grow up aware of the Cú Chulainn legends, the tale of Macha, and the Ulster cycle less hard, but damn, it got me right where it hurts.
Damn, it really did. Definitely recommended.
C. E. Murphy, Thunderbird Falls. How can I really like the main character, voice, and basic set-up of a story, and then be irritated as all hell with it? Well, the number one reason was that I could see the main twist, the one the whole plot hangs on, coming ten miles off.
If your character is going to be stupid (albeit consistent with self, plot, and set-up), I really prefer it when it's the subtle kind of stupid.
Catherine Asaro, Ascendant Sun. Suffers from the same issue all the Skolia books (with the exception of Primary Inversion) do, namely the ending. Or lack thereof. Also, Kelric is a massively cool character, but so much of the plot revolves around him as a sex object. Not really my style of thing, lads. Not really at all.
L. A. Meyer, Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary 'Jacky' Faber, Ship's Boy. Reading quite a bit of YA recently. This is pretty decent fair, being about a girl from the slums who disguises herself as a boy to crew out aboard a man o'war.
Justine Larbalestier, Magic or Madness. Pretty good stuff. Contemporary YA, with magic or without, is not, for my sins, one of my most favourite genres. Still, Larbalestier writes good character.
Garth Nix, Shade's Children. I have a confession to make with regard to this book: I read it in two instalments, standing in a bookshop, and then didn't buy it. Which is very nearly theft, I suspect, and therefore unethical. But damnit, I couldn't resist.
I loved Sabriel and Lirael and was disappointed at Abhorsen. I hadn't read anything else of Nix's until this, but damn, it hooked me at the first page.
One day, everyone over fourteen disappeared from the face of the earth. The Overlords took their place, and once children hit fourteen, they're taken up for parts to be used in the machines the Overlords use to fight battles against each other.
Except for the handful who escape to fight back.
Nix is good.
Non-fiction:
Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves. Pomeroy is Professor of Classics at Hunter College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York. She is renowned for Goddesses, one of the first - perhaps the first - text to seriously treat the history of women in Classical Antiquity. First published in the 1970s, it is a testament to how very neglected the social history of women in the classical world has been that it remains the most comprehensive work in the field today.
And, wow.
No, seriously, wow. Most historians fail to write with one tenth the clarity and enthusiasm that Professor Pomeroy employs in pursuit of her subject. And gods and little fishes, she is comprehensive. Well worth reading, even if you aren't a student of antiquity, simply for the sheer pleasure of watching a talented historian exercise her critical faculties in an under-studied field.
In between dealing with bureaucratic crap from TCD and the body that deals with my grant applications, trying to stay alive and exercised, holding my mum's hand at the dentist, and being a lazy sod who watches too many episodes of Dark Angel all at once, I've been reading.
Surprise surprise.
Books:
Jo Walton, The Prize in the Game. Set in the same world as The King's Peace, which I've read, and The King's Name, which I haven't. Imaginative and talented use of the Táin mythos, with extra points for hitting all the right notes. Perhaps it would hit someone who didn't grow up aware of the Cú Chulainn legends, the tale of Macha, and the Ulster cycle less hard, but damn, it got me right where it hurts.
Damn, it really did. Definitely recommended.
C. E. Murphy, Thunderbird Falls. How can I really like the main character, voice, and basic set-up of a story, and then be irritated as all hell with it? Well, the number one reason was that I could see the main twist, the one the whole plot hangs on, coming ten miles off.
If your character is going to be stupid (albeit consistent with self, plot, and set-up), I really prefer it when it's the subtle kind of stupid.
Catherine Asaro, Ascendant Sun. Suffers from the same issue all the Skolia books (with the exception of Primary Inversion) do, namely the ending. Or lack thereof. Also, Kelric is a massively cool character, but so much of the plot revolves around him as a sex object. Not really my style of thing, lads. Not really at all.
L. A. Meyer, Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary 'Jacky' Faber, Ship's Boy. Reading quite a bit of YA recently. This is pretty decent fair, being about a girl from the slums who disguises herself as a boy to crew out aboard a man o'war.
Justine Larbalestier, Magic or Madness. Pretty good stuff. Contemporary YA, with magic or without, is not, for my sins, one of my most favourite genres. Still, Larbalestier writes good character.
Garth Nix, Shade's Children. I have a confession to make with regard to this book: I read it in two instalments, standing in a bookshop, and then didn't buy it. Which is very nearly theft, I suspect, and therefore unethical. But damnit, I couldn't resist.
I loved Sabriel and Lirael and was disappointed at Abhorsen. I hadn't read anything else of Nix's until this, but damn, it hooked me at the first page.
One day, everyone over fourteen disappeared from the face of the earth. The Overlords took their place, and once children hit fourteen, they're taken up for parts to be used in the machines the Overlords use to fight battles against each other.
Except for the handful who escape to fight back.
Nix is good.
Non-fiction:
Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves. Pomeroy is Professor of Classics at Hunter College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York. She is renowned for Goddesses, one of the first - perhaps the first - text to seriously treat the history of women in Classical Antiquity. First published in the 1970s, it is a testament to how very neglected the social history of women in the classical world has been that it remains the most comprehensive work in the field today.
And, wow.
No, seriously, wow. Most historians fail to write with one tenth the clarity and enthusiasm that Professor Pomeroy employs in pursuit of her subject. And gods and little fishes, she is comprehensive. Well worth reading, even if you aren't a student of antiquity, simply for the sheer pleasure of watching a talented historian exercise her critical faculties in an under-studied field.
