Paused two-thirds of the way through "The Deaths of Tao" by Wesley Chu. Probably won't resume reading it (which is unusual for me -- at least by that point). "The Lives of Tao" was enjoyable alien invasion/mind parasite/secret history hokum but this one is both grimmer and less fun. Also: breathless pacing but somehow the wheels of the plot are spinning in the mud, not gaining traction.
Beginning "The Outsorcerer's Apprentice" by Tom Holt because it's a Tom Holt farce. (What other reason do you need?) Not far enough in to have an opinion.
A quarter of the way into the manuscript of "Poison City" by Paul Crilley. South-African noir urban fantasy (detective working for the SA occult police investigating gods, demons, and all sorts of local magical stuff while trying to work out why his daughter and some other children were abducted and murdered, years ago). It's very, very good and has a unique-ish setting and tone, but he's had bad luck (publisher just went down in flames) so ... we'll see if it sells
( ... )
What do you think the tipping point is between an otherwise high octane plot spinning in the mud or gaining traction? It seems too simple to say 'character development' but there's a tension between headlong action and character arc that I keep trying to poke at.
Yeah, I bogged down in Atkinson's otherwise excellent history of WW II but that wasn't out of boredom, more because I felt he kept overlooking the crucial contribution of those private army types, especially in the fight up Italy--then I keep hopping over to read Rommel and Guderian, then I forget where I was in Atkinson and have to backtrack . . .
Just starting Peter Knight's sociopolitical history of the British experience of the Napoleonic wars.
I've recently finished Diarmaid MaCculloch's magisterial biography of Thomas Cranmer and Anna Whitelock's intimate history of Queen Elizabeth I's court mostly from the PoV of her ladies in waiting.
I finally got Atul Gawande's essays on end of life care, which is so exciting to me. This makes me feel ghoulish, but I have really liked his essays elsewhere, and old people are important in my life, so the library queue felt interminably long until my turn came yesterday.
I'm also reading this. It's emotionally kind of hard to read, but after the events of the last year (losing my dad after prolonged illness) it feels really important and seems to be doing me good.
The last thing I read was The Break, by Sean Gabb. This was proposed for a Prometheus Award; I'd heard of Gabb as a British libertarian or conservative figure, but not as a novelist (apparently he actually has several out). The writing was surprisingly and pleasantly creditable, never making it a struggle to pick up the book again, and I liked the way the diplomat from 11th century Constantinople was portrayed as intelligent, sophisticated, and able to figure out ideas like parallel time tracks-in fact as more competent and more informed than twenty-first century characters his age. The treatment of medieval history had a "lived in" feel. I'm not sure how "libertarian" I'd call it-it has some portrayals of the abuses of power, but that the abusers seem to be simple conventional villains. On the other hand, it was interesting to read a new novel about the twenty-first century encountering the past where the "moderns" come not as liberators or enlighteners but as Dark Lords; good counterpoint to Stirling, Flint, Birmingham, and for that
( ... )
Plain Tales is remarkably good for how young a writer he was. Despite his other flaws, he had a gift for sympathetic portraits of others (as well as for voices).
Yes, I nearly remarked on that. It was especially striking how the confident, respected woman in Kim differs from the woman whose later life Kipling hinted at in "Lispeth"; I have to feel that his later judgment was better-it might be taken as undermining the point of the earlier story, but really I don't think Lispeth has to become a victim whose life is destroyed for her anger at being lied to to be compelling.
There's also Strickland's walk-on midway through Kim, though he's not so lively a figure as in the earlier short stories. I did a bit of googling and found that both Strickland and Mrs. Hauksbee are thought to have been modeled on historical people whose names are known-and Strickland's supposed model was half Afghan!
I reread Kim just a little previous, and this time I actually grasped the way the ending deliberately leaves the story of Kim and the Lama in suspension. It also struck me how the old lady who is a comic figure most of the way through the book turns into a healer, a source of wisdom, indeed almost an earth
( ... )
Besides Being Mortal (mentioned in comments above), I'm also currently reading Cherie Priest's Maplecroft and Charles Haines' The Urban Biking Handbook. I'm also continuing my slog through Cryptonomicon ("this is the book that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends...") and I just finished reading Ruth Goodman's How to Be a Victorian which I cannot recommend highly enough to anyone with any interest at all in the Victorian era.
No, the Goodman is as far from those cash-ins as you can get. According to her back cover author bio "Ruth Goodman is a historian of British social and domestic life. She has worked as a consultant for the Victoria and Albert Museum and presented a number of BBC television series, including Victorian Farm. She lives in England." The book is full of her experiences actually doing these things using authentic Victorian techniques and tools.
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Beginning "The Outsorcerer's Apprentice" by Tom Holt because it's a Tom Holt farce. (What other reason do you need?) Not far enough in to have an opinion.
A quarter of the way into the manuscript of "Poison City" by Paul Crilley. South-African noir urban fantasy (detective working for the SA occult police investigating gods, demons, and all sorts of local magical stuff while trying to work out why his daughter and some other children were abducted and murdered, years ago). It's very, very good and has a unique-ish setting and tone, but he's had bad luck (publisher just went down in flames) so ... we'll see if it sells ( ... )
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Yeah, I bogged down in Atkinson's otherwise excellent history of WW II but that wasn't out of boredom, more because I felt he kept overlooking the crucial contribution of those private army types, especially in the fight up Italy--then I keep hopping over to read Rommel and Guderian, then I forget where I was in Atkinson and have to backtrack . . .
Tom Holt. Check. Goes on the list.
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I've recently finished Diarmaid MaCculloch's magisterial biography of Thomas Cranmer and Anna Whitelock's intimate history of Queen Elizabeth I's court mostly from the PoV of her ladies in waiting.
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Ditto the other two. In fact, didn't I already read the Whitelock? Hmmm...
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(And Lisbeth reappears later in Kim!)
---L.
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There's also Strickland's walk-on midway through Kim, though he's not so lively a figure as in the earlier short stories. I did a bit of googling and found that both Strickland and Mrs. Hauksbee are thought to have been modeled on historical people whose names are known-and Strickland's supposed model was half Afghan!
I reread Kim just a little previous, and this time I actually grasped the way the ending deliberately leaves the story of Kim and the Lama in suspension. It also struck me how the old lady who is a comic figure most of the way through the book turns into a healer, a source of wisdom, indeed almost an earth ( ... )
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Hadn't known that about Strickland -- huh!
---L.
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