Mostly reading

[heliopausa]

So, this helps explain why my internet access has been running so slow all week.  (Though the clip of the shark gnawing a cable is just  from the files, not this week's actual damage being done.)   I've been running slow myself, and the two of us combined - me and the internet - have made the week a wonder of non-productivity.

On the other hand, I

Comments

[asakiyume]

Message from the sharks: Mmmm, your internet is delicious to us.

And I had no idea that the Greeks of Ovid's day had such a clear picture of how the world is (though of course we know the equatorial region is habitable).

The story of the Japanese family is lovely; I'm going to share it with my husband. And I like the idea of the dog imitating the god on the amulet, rather than posing reverently :-)

[heliopausa]

There'd been lots of trade way down through Africa, so I have no worries about the Romans knowing about the torrid zones (come to that, I've seen Roman coins which were traded down this way, to the Cham kingdoms in the south, two thousand years ago), but I'm intrigued by the reference to a cold south pole. I suppose they were extrapolating from the celestial poles? And posited cold, from a sense of symmetry? (Good old symmetrical Romans!)
I liked the dog-headed one having a mind of its own, too! :) (however little approved by the Expert Who Knows.)

[autumnia]

I thought that story about the Japanese family was touching, thanks for sharing that!

[heliopausa]

Yes,me too. It's something very fundamental and important, isn't it, the way we value such a gift. As in the fairytale about the poor man who gave his last pennies to see that a stranger's body was let to rest in peace, and then was guided by a fellow-traveller through terrible dangers.

[wellinghall]

What Vorkosigan have you been reading?

[heliopausa]

I'm going through them chronologically, and I've just finished Brothers in Arms and the dread Mirror-Dance. I do think she rather pulled some character-enhancing rabbits out of the hat there, with Mark. (i.e. the sticky-tape was showing, rather.)
As far as the grim treatment of characters goes, I gave myself permission to slither past those bits without reading in detail - even so, I don't think Mark is going to be as easily patched up as she seems to imply. (And I thought everybody was unconvincingly slow not to notice Lord Vorkosigan was not visible while they puzzled over which was Admiral Naismith and which was the clone.) I did find Ivan's treatment in Brothers in Arms pretty tough, too.

[wellinghall]

I know what you mean about the rabbits / sticky tape.

Skipping some bits is entirely reasonable; and yes, Ivan doesn't get off lightly in BiA.

I haven't been reading enough long fiction recently. I may start William Morris' News from Nowhere today; and I have two novels started some time ago that I mean to pick up again; David Langford's The Space Eater, and China Mieville's The City and the City.

[heliopausa]

Oooh! nineteenth-century futurism! Fun! :) There's a chapter in The Story of the Amulet which is written in the same spirit, and Jerome K.Jerome wrote very snipey counter-story, and I've read an Australian one from around the same time. I wonder who started it all?

I haven't read either of the other two, but you inspire me! Not to read those, because I haven't got them by me, but to read at least one of the unread ones on my bookshelf. Oh, goodness... choice, choice... all right, this one! My Name is Red, by Orhan Pamuk. Looks rather daunting. "Shakespearean in its grandeur" the book-cover says, "rich and essential"... :( Daunting, but I'll report by the end of the month!