Patriot's Dream by Barbara Michaels (or was she writing as Elizabeth Peters? I can never remember.) I've read it dozens of times as one of my traditional light summertime treats- sorta the literary comfort equivalent of watermelon and sun tea.
Finished three books. Well, nearly finished… (1) The Call of the Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, Howard Phillips Lovecraft. This was my introduction with Lovecraft, and I think I can best describe it as having been both profitable and painful. Profitable because I can now confirm HPL was an immensely gifted short story plotter, as well as a world class talent at imagining and presenting soul- and sanity-imperiling horror. In those abilities I judge him fully deserving of his enduring literary influence. But painful in the sense that his prose was all too often grandiloquent and tediously verbose. And here I have to confess that I couldn’t get through The Shadow Over Innsmouth; the pages and pages and pages of Zadok’s bumpkin New England accent nearly brought on a headache. Rating: 3 stars. Favorite Lovecraft stories from this collection: The Statement of Randolph Carter, The Outsider, & Cool Air (2) Speaks the Nightbird, Robert McCammon. A gothic mystery centered around a witch-cursed colonial South Carolina town. I’m quite fond of McCammon as a storyteller, and this longish novel is further evidence of why. Its characters are well-drawn. Its setting is lovingly explored. And its mystery is intriguing. I do have a few plot complaints during the story’s second half, but its last forty pages or so mostly make up for them. Rating: 4 stars. (3) At The Earth’s Core, Edgar Rice Burroughs. This pulp science fantasy novella missed the mark with me by the widest of margins. Shallow, uninteresting characters. Dry, lifeless writing. A comically absurd plot, and an awful romance to boot. Rating: 1 star.
Finished two more books. A Song for Arbonne, Guy Gavriel Kay. Rating: 2.5 stars. The Traveling Vampire Show, Richard Laymon. Rating: 3.5 stars.
Just started reading, The ENIGMA Story. Authored by Dermot Turing - nephew of the great WW2 codebreaker, Alan Turing. .................................................. Just finished reading Camino Winds by John Grisham. I enjoy reading John Grisham novels, but sadly did not enjoy this particular one. The plot, to me anyway, was a bit weak.
Fun fact - I am going to see my dear ol' mum in the morning. She was at Bletchley in 1944, billeted at Chicksands Priory (famed for its ghost that the girls were all afraid of), taking down the messages to feed the code-breakers. She's coming on 99, bed-ridden, largely blind, largely deaf, but she still knows Morse code...
Reading Horsemen in No Man's Land: British Cavalry & Trench Warfare, 1914-1918 by David Kenyon. Ever since I read Badsey's, in my opinion eye opening Doctrine and Reform in the British Cavalry 1880-1918 I have become intensenly interested in the issue of cavalry in the long 19th century from Napoleonic times and onward. And luckily for me the debate on this issue in recent times has produced alot of interesting material for me to read. So I expect it will be all "cavalry" for some time. The only thing that I'm a bit disappointed in is that beyond the Napoleonic Wars its almost only British stuff that can be found, with some stuff for the Great War. I would have loved to read more about the French, Russian and German cavalry during this era but alas, there's fairly little to read in English and either hard to get or pretty expensive. But I shall persevere. EDITED: A correction. There are some good stuff on German cavalry in the Great War but much less so on the Russian and French. :/
Prayers the Devil Answers. Sharyn McCrumb. A reread. I just reread her book about the battle of King's Mountain.
I liked both of these. I'd give A Song for Arbonne more stars but I'm always happy to see people reading Kay.
I’ll definitely read something else from him in the future. Tigana remains one of my top ten high/epic fantasy novels, and I just really enjoy Kay’s prose. There’s something faintly enchanting about it.
Brave New World. Yeah, I don't like it. Seems to be a problem I have with classics. Even 1984 bored me to sleep. Should finish it though.
I'm between books and the library is closed on Sunday. Nuts. Guess I may as well do a few of the little jobs that have waited patiently for me to finish the last three books. I've used the hot weather as an excuse to sit and read but it is only 71 degrees today so... no more excuses.
It’s all about expectations. Well it is with me, at least. I did enjoy 1984 but like you I struggled with BNW (never finished it, in fact). Same with Fahrenheit 451. And there was another whose title escapes me. It was set in a post-apocalyptic world where teenagers had taken control - kind of how things feel now sometimes when I’m walking across the market square - but it was written in the 50s (?) and the language and dialogue very much dates it that way.
I'm thinking of taking a break from reading human history, and fiction, and read some natural history instead. Time will tell though.
The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 by Nick Lloyd. It's a general's-eye view of the war, and the callousness of those men is stunning even when you know the terrible outlines of the conflict.
Mockingbird by Walter Tevis. It’s a sci-fi novel but I don’t know if I can justify posting it here as I’m not yet reading it. It is, however, sat there on my coffee table, staring at me… waiting for the day I feel brave enough to commit myself to its pages.
The second of William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, kind-of, trilogy, Spook Country. As with the first book, Pattern Recognition, Gibson writes without preamble, asking the reader to pay attention. I'm finding myself at times vainly trying to read between the lines to find the connecting dots that will make sense of the story. I actually think the second book is a little tougher to read than the first in this respect. Saying all that, it's well written, and when you get inside the story, eventually, you find a story worth getting inside for. The only other problem, and this is a general problem, and it relates to older science fiction works, where the technology is feeling its age, even being passed by already. It does tend to take the edge off a good story on occasion.
Yesterday I bought myself another John Grisham novel titled; The Judges List. I'm already nearly half way through the book and its a great read.
Finished two books. Tigerheart, Peter David. A Peter Pan reimagining, and it hits harder (emotionally and thematically) than what you might expect. Plenty of poignant scenes. Plenty of concepts for adult readers to ruminate on. Both the adventure and magical world play second fiddle to the story’s many thematic messages. And I was perfectly fine with that. Rating: 4 stars. ~~~ Now, between the lines, the wounded began to call out, the screams and the praying echoed through the darkness. The horror of the sounds grew in each man because there could be no help, no one could move forward. Those who could not accept that, who tried to crawl, to reach the voices, if only to take a canteen or pull a man back to the safety of a rock, found a deadly response, that someone was watching, waiting. There would come the brief terrible flash of the musket, the sharp whine of the ball, the smack of lead against tree, against rock, against bone. In the growing darkness each man began to feel that the enemy was all around him, not just the man waiting with the musket, as blind as you, but this horrible ground, the small black spaces around each man, and each man wondered why those men back there—with the fine horses and the hot food, polished brass and white tents—why they would send their soldiers into this terrible place. ~ the Battle of the Wilderness, The Last Full Measure The Last Full Measure, Jeff Shaara. This historical (and emotional) ride has finally come to an end. I wasn’t ready to get off, though. I freak’n love these books! Admittedly, my bias for the American Civil War undoubtedly plays no small part in that love. For me, that war is The War. It’s the point and place in history I’ll never tire of looking back on, of digging through. That said, Michael and Jeff’s storytelling, from cover to cover of each book, was masterful. One needn’t have an uncommon fascination with the Civil War to recognize that. Rating: 4.5 stars. Currently reading: The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov.
It's not bad, but feels very dated. So does a lot of Asimov, Clarke, and the like. For me it's that 50s and 60s perception of the future, technology, and the human race's reaction/adaptation to it. Seems kind of Dick and Jane compared to reality and sucks most of the previously perceived poignancy out of it for me.
It's a problem, with Science Fiction writers, will their stories, and to an extent, their predictions, stand the test of time. I've always wondered about what they wrote, the future they saw, will it start the very thing in their minds eye, or will it doom it from ever starting in the first place. Or put it this way - I wonder how many things began just because they were written about.
