between the rock and the cold, cold sea

Books 2008: 81

81. Ink and Steel, Elizabeth Bear.

This is a book that would give me an inferiority complex, if I let it.

I'm not yet sure if I like it: it's sufficiently dense and fraught that it may require some digestion. I did, though, find it fascinating, and the sheer technical skill of the prose and the narrative, not to mention the level of historical detail (noteable more for the smoothness with which it's incorporated than for how much it stands out), is bloody freaking impressive.

Don't, for gods' sakes, ask me what it was about, other than Will and Kit and Faerie and Hell and possibly love and blood and treachery - there's, as now seems usual with one of Bear's Promethean Age books, such a damned lot packed into one single book, that's a question it'd be impossible to answer.

I am, however, even more sad now that Hell and Earth will arrive while I'm in Crete.

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In other news, climbing was pretty good. One route sent, with much cursing: I've sent it before, but it felt much more awkward today. Two routes attempted and failed, after much trying, but I note some improvement.

However. I fail running. I'm blaming the week on the boat, because copping out with really poor wind after only about three minutes is... not what I'm used to.

Now I sit here and wait for my chicken dinner to cook, and try not to eat the furniture in the meanwhile.

Prince Caspian is not made of fail. Well, I don't really remember the book. And I don't watch films for the thinky, and this one wasn't especially clever, what with the somewhat predictable narrative, the irritatingly obvious - and repetitive! - Christian allegory, and the completely deus ex machina ending. Also, forced tension.

The battle scenes went on a bit long, too.

However. It had pretty boys, horses, swordfights, archery, and talking animals, and there were one or two - possibly even three - moments I couldn't help loving. (The badger and the soup, for example, and the moment where Susan says to Lucy, "It looks like you'll be going on alone after all." Even if Lucy is the most irritatingly pious little girl I've ever seen acted, Susan the archer is made of a win that speaks to my heart.)

And I more than slightly liked the soundtrack.

Books 2008: 80

80. Kelley Armstrong, The Summoning.

Young adult. Diverting enough, if tedious at points. Ends in medias res.

Books 2008: 79

79. Sophia McDougall, Romanitas

The conceit of a Roman empire that has lasted through to the modern era and covers, with the exception of China and Japan, most of the planet, is one which does not survive serious scrutiny.

So forget about that. This is a book made of win. And I'm not just saying that because I'm an ancient history geek. The Roman element is very Roman, without ever losing the sense of technological but not social progress.

The main characters are Una and Sulien, escaped slaves from Britain, and Marcus Novius Faustus, a member of the imperial family, whose parents (his father was the heir apparent) were murdered because they supported the abolition of slavery. On the run, Una and Sulien encounter Marcus, also on the run from the same people who killed his parents and want him dead. Much of interest ensues.

The prose is very smooth, with the exception of a couple of head-hopping moments. It is a very well-done book, a bit more literary than spec in its sensibilities, and much more concerned with the internal world of the characters, Una, Sulien, Marcus, and the other viewpoint character, Varius, than with what I'm going to go out on a limb and call 'Rome pr0n' - legions, gladiators, that kind of thing.

I found it convincing, compelling, and fascinatingly interesting.

I stayed very close to safety while swimming today. Oh yes indeed.

Books 2008: 78

78. Sarah B. Pomeroy, Women in Hellenistic Egypt (Michigan, 1990).

The paperback edition of a book first published in 1984, this is good, solid, social history dealing with the lives of women of varied status between the third and first centuries BCE. Queens, married women, and slaves and workers are treated of.

It's very readable, and I suspect its flaws - apart from the queens, the aristocracy does not seem to me to have been treated with the same degree of rigor as the non-aristocratic woman - stem from the lack of available evidence from Alexandria, seat of the aristocracy (with a climate not really suitable to the survival of papyrii). It's not a book for the novice, despite its readability: it assumes a significant familiarity with the period, with the result that I'm fairly sure I missed as much detail as I caught.

But it is really good history, for all that.

The book I would like to read next is a detailed examination of the social differences between late Dynastic Egypt, Hellenistic Egypt, and Roman Egypt, which traces their development through time. But, alas, I suspect that book is not yet written.

Egyptologists and Classicists don't seem to...talk? Let their disciplines inform each other that often, anyway.

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Gym today. 25 mins on the treadmill, for 2 miles and change: mile in 9.5 mins. Weights, stretching. An hour in the library, trying not to snore while attempting to read about the University of Pennsylvania archaeological survey of the region around the site of Vrokastro, including the Istron valley, and I headed home for swimming.

Sleepy now.

Books 2008: 74-77

These are the books which I read cover-to-cover in the last week or so:

(exam reading)

74. A.A. Andrews, The Greek Tyrants, London, 1956. (re-read)

Straightforward introduction to Greek tyranny. Rather brief, too, which stands in its favour. Clear, concise, but occasionally annoying when he starts talking about the 'Dorian race,' which is a theory that has largely been discredited as out of sync with the available evidence.

75. Donald Preziosi and Louise A. Hitchcock, Aegean Art and Architecture, Oxford, 1999.

As an introduction to the art and architecture of the Aegean in the Bronze Age, this is a book which does not succeed on all the fronts on which I would have liked it to succeed. Several important, interesting sites, such as Lerna (EM period) and Mallia (EM, MM, LM) are scarcely mentioned, and there is a distinct lack of focus on non-palatial architecture in terms of both Crete and the mainland. I found the material on the architecture of burial to be rather scanty, and the Mycenaeans deserve somewhat more space than they received here. The analysis occasionally wanders into art-historical territory, also, which makes sense, I suppose, since the book was published in the Oxford History of Art series.

That said, despite its failings, it's a solid, useful introduction, with in general clear explanation and illustration, both in terms of site plans and colour pictures.

#

(fun!)

76. Jennifer Fallon, The Immortal Prince

This is not a bad book, but it's not a book for me. It strikes me, fundamentally, as a safe book, and the potential for intrigue and nastiness that was on the cover flap?

Not really there. It lost major points for that, since I was expecting something more than what was actually there.

77. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Passage

It's Bujold. There are riverboats. Do I need to say more?

I love it with the kind of crazy love I don't have for any other author's work, because Bujold, since The Curse of Chalion, has been writing measured books with both breadth and depth, and the kind of prose that doesn't draw attention to itself, but when you stop to look at it, has a verve and energy that underlies every paragraph.

"The team of eight huge dun horses thundered past at a lumbering trot, hopeful for home, the bells on their harness shaking out bright sounds like salt along their path." [p53]

These are quiet books, weirdly gentle even in the midst of horror or brutality, and oddly reassuring. You don't mind spending a few hours - or longer - travelling along with Dag and Fawn: they're people you might almost like to meet.

And oddly reassuring - I come back to this, because in Passage, there's something really quite reassuring in Bujold's Dag and Fawn, these extraordinary ordinary people, quietly exploring the edges of a seemingly insoluble problem; a social problem, the misunderstandings that exist between lakewalkers and farmers, and going forward with the conviction that with time, and patience, and people of good will, they can make a difference.

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I did myself a disservice, trying to go straight from exam footing into get stuff done! today!. Since I failed at running, I gave myself licence to get food out, and then go for a pretty decent walk, down the length of the north beach, up to the so-called 'Sailors' Grave'.

Rotting seaweed smells like nothing else on earth. It's not a rotting vegetation smell: it's umami-rich and salty-sweet, sort of warmly damp, with an undertone of oily fish. It's not unpleasant, precisely, but when you take a breath you can taste it, too. It reminds me a little of blood: it has the same not-quite-copper tang.

Yeah, I spent the walk back trying to find words to describe it properly.

It was raining, so I was pretty damp by the time I got back. So I put on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. (Video rental place is doing reduced-rate deals lately.)

If it weren't for Harrison Ford, this film would be made of fail. It has thoughtless racism, sexism, and not really all that much adventure!archaeology. The dialogue is not exactly made of win, and I kept wanting to strangle the kid. And, ah. Convincing, the plot is not. It is made of contrivance.

On the plus (or maybe the minus) side, I now want to write a book about an early twentieth-century archaeologist that makes a passing stab at realism (go to the back of the queue, you) and has politics instead of (as well as) mysticism. And vampires. It seems to be an idea that comes complete with vampires. (And Pitt Rivers' new methods. And snark about Sir Arthur Evans and Heinrich Schliemann.)

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It also occured to me, on my walkabout, that I know what subject I'd like to focus on for my final-year thesis, year after next. Well, one of two, depending on who's available to act as supervisor. Either Alexandria, and its changing relationship with Rome during the decline of the Ptolemaic empire/rise of Rome in the east, or lions and leonine imagery in Mycenaean and/or Minoan iconography. (Bulls and bull-leaping has been studied half to death. I don't think the lions have been treated quite so comprehensively.)

Should I be so fortunate as to be able to afford to do a PhD, I'm fairly certain I'd prefer to concentrate on Alexandria. Maybe throw in a comparison with Athens in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, if I ever ran out of purely Alexandrian material. Might get to twist Palmyra in there, somewhere, too.

Yeah, start reading now. I know.

And start saving now, too. (And learn Latin. And improve on Greek.)

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Wow, this turned into a long post.

So, this is what I did instead of study Thursday.

Books 2008: 70-73.

70. C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp, Touch of Madness.

Urban fantasy (paranormal romance) with nasty-icky parasite vampires. Sex scenes boring, parasitic vampires interesting, but more vampires than sex, so on the whole a win for overall entertainment.

71-73. Laura Anne Gilman, Curse the Dark, Bring It On, and Burning Bridges.

Interesting urban fantasy. I missed the first installment (bookshops with their uneven stock problems, ack), but I didn't feel as though I lost too much context. Fun.

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Hot weather yesterday (about 20 Celsius) so there was swimming. Today, I'm in the throes of rearranging my workspace (new shelves!) and otherwise ignoring the fact I have exams Tuesday and Wednesday.

I feel pretty anxious. I have trouble concentrating, when it's warm, and when I'm under pressure. Both together are bad. And my social anxiety is back, to the point where it's affecting my online interactions as well. I feel very much like an idiot, and I hate that.

Exams. So not my favourite things. Anybody got good news? :)

Books 2008: 69.

69. David Cordingly, Heroines and Harlots: Women at Sea in the Great Age of Sail.

As a general introduction to the topic of women at sea, this scores a resounding meh. As a scholarly work, it's made of fail. While Cordingly treats of a number of interesting individuals, that is the main focus of his work: a chatty, shallow treatment of individuals, with very little rigorous analysis of social trends, conditions, consequences. His approach is haphazardly thematic, with little-to-no space given to consideration of change over time, and very little consideration of non-English or American evidence or individuals.

I mean, not that it's not interesting? But it's shallow, and I confess myself rather disappointed.

#

In other news, I have performed some study. I should probably go now to perform more.

Crawled out of bed at half seven this morning, after a very broken night's sleep. (The alarm went off at half five, but discretion appeared the better part of valour, considering I only fell asleep at three.)

Virtue and study took place, followed by 45 minutes worth of bouldering. I am not mighty this week: I am crampy and discommoded and weak instead, and fed up with being stood up by people who say, "Hey, sure, I'll climb with you," and dodge out at the last minute. Internets! If you know of sane, belay-competent climbers in Dublin who use the new Trinity wall, send them my direction! I am a sane, belay-competent climber in need of more friends!

Well, I think I'm sane, anyway. Who can say?

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Books 2008: 67-68.

67. E.E. Knight, Valentine's Exile

I really kinda like the almost Western feel of postapocalyptic "Vampire Earth" series. Not the world's most intellectual entertainment, but pretty good with the cool stuff nonetheless.

68. Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death

1171. Adelia Aguilar, a woman doctor from Salerno, accompanied by an Arab and a Jew, is dispatched to England by the King of Naples in order to assist in proving that a Jewish community is not responsible for the murder of four children in Cambridge.

The prose is sparse and taut, the period detail well-researched, the characters fully-fleshed and beyond merely interesting. A historical mystery, it compares well in atmosphere to Connie Willis' Doomsday Book; tense and freighted.

I like it a very great deal.

I can't read the international news anymore. I'm sorry, I just can't. It has overwhelmed my ability to comprehend scale. It is, quite simply, unimaginable.

I can't read the national news anymore, either, but at least that's for somewhat less horrific reasons.

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Swimming today. I must be getting used to the sea, because it's actually starting to feel tolerably warm.

I completely fail at study, but, you know? I have decided for today and tomorrow not to care.

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Books 2008: 62-66.

62. Marie Brennan, Midnight Never Come

Bright and sharp and vicious faeries. Elizabethan London. Plots. Pacts. Deceptions. Great characters, good plot, good prose, great pacing.

What's not to like?

63. Lisa Shearin, Magic Lost, Trouble Found

While enjoyable, this is a fantasy that's very... modern? I'm not sure that's precisely the right word, but it'll do - in it's attitudes. It also feels as though it owes somewhat to roleplaying settings such as Forbidden Realms, etc.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's a fun book, but it didn't feel especially fresh to me.

64-65. Joshua Palmatier, The Skewed Throne and The Cracked Throne

Now, this is fresh. Interesting set-up, a fascinating and very clearly realised main character, and some very interesting character growth over the course of the two books.

I look forward to book three.

66. A.N. Wilson, The Victorians

A dense and comprehensive overview of the Victorian period, from the accession of Queen Victoria until her death. It is, more than anything, a history of the rise of the modern world - the intellectual trends of the time, the conflicting moral and capitalist impulses of the Victorians, the questions and issues that defined their different worlds, and how the identity of Victorian Britain altered over the course of eighty years.

It's over six hundred pages long, not including notes, and is, as I said, fairly dense. That said, however, it's also pretty accessible, and unlike many histories that aim to be overviews of such a lengthy period, more than slightly interesting.

Books 2008: 61

61. Emma Bull, War for the Oaks.

This book, we add it to the list of books to take a very special place in my heart. It's excellent. Beyond words.

And too, it was the perfect book for me to read tonight, being both beautiful, intense, and hopeful.

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I've been anxious a lot lately. That time of month - that time of year, with the exams hard on the horizon and me with a head full of distractions and vague, creeping unease that I can't quite shake. Exercise doesn't do it. Reading does, for a while, but I can't read forever.

I'm sad and I'm afraid? And I don't quite know why, or of what? And I know this doesn't make sense - for fuck's sake, I know it's mostly chemical - but damnit, I would like not to feel a)stupid, b)inadequate, c)weak and d)so goddamn alone at your regularly scheduled intervals.

But, you know. Suck it up and carry on, no? Because I guess that's all there really is to do.