Cahill is determined to redeem the Middle Ages from the likes of William Manchester (A World Lit Only By Fire) and Mark Twain (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court). On the contrary, Cahill writes
The reputation of the Middle Ages for thuggish cruelty is largely (if not wholly) undeserved.
which I find a bit of a relief, since I much prefer the Middle Ages of Brother Cafael to the Middle Ages of Torquemada. When Cahill cites Hildegarde of Bingen as proof of the rise of feminism in the Middle Ages, you might raise a skeptical eyebrow. When Cahill then proceeds to point out that Heloise and Eleanor of Aquitaine were contemporaries of Hildegarde, you begin to wonder if perhaps he might be onto something. It's easy to jam all these centuries together and label them as brutal, ignorant, misogynist and diseased (see any high school history course), but then, Cahill rightly points out, how do you explain Hildegarde, Heloise and Eleanor? Giotto? Dante? Roger Bacon? Chartres?
Lively prose and a wealth of contextual savvy combine to make this a quick read. There is lots of detail about life as it was then lived
The insoluble medieval problem in the face of such a company was sanitation. Plumbing was unknown; and the tradition of public bathing, though as much a part of the Greco-Roman heritage as plumbing had been, had perished beyond Byzantium. Because individual bathing in a copper basin in a drafty castle could lead so easily to chill, then to fever an death, kings and queens seldom bathed more than once a month, those with neither washerwoman nor ewerer at their command scarcely more than once or twice a year.
Saint he might have been, you could smell Francis of Assisi coming long before you saw him.
Cahill isn't shy about using the present to illustrate the past, either
Yes, the Bush/Blair invasion of Iraq was an immense blunder engineered by adolescent fantasists, ignorant of cultural realities. But no one, whether Bush or bin Laden, has the right to blow up innocent civilians...Islam began as a warrior religion bent on worldly conquest...
When Francis of Assisi joins the Fifth Crusade
...the Mediterranean had become, in fact, a Muslim sea, its African and Asian coasts entirely dominated by the Crescent.
Francis, in fact, meets in person with Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil, nephew of Saladin himself, he who booted Richard the Lionheart out of Palestine once and for all. The saint proselytizes the sultan, to no avail, and Francis takes his admiration for the five-times daily Islamic call to prayer back to Europe where it becomes the three-times daily recitation of the Angelus. Who knew?
I particularly enjoyed the footnotes, which are in this case sidenotes, with illustrated letters. For example
[imagine an illustrated lower case b here] In the ancient world, women never addressed large crowds, not only because their opinions were unsought, but because there were no public address systems, and the unaided casting of the voice to a large crowd, especially in the open air, present insurmountable difficulties to most women...The late Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals of the Middles Ages, because they were echoing sound boxes, gave women their first opportunity to address large meetings.
Again, who knew?
In the next to the last chapter, Cahill parallel's Dante's Inferno to our own time with startling aptness, but the last chapter is reserved for a polemic against the Catholic Church in its present pedophilic incarnation, although said polemic feels more heartbroken than accusatory. From the Scrovegni Chapel to the Ryan Report, lo, how the mighty have fallen.
Less than two hundred pages packed with information on the title subject, written in lively prose and illustrated mostly with line drawings from the times, plus a few photographs. Where else are you going find out that during the Middle Ages
An amusement gallery was sometimes run in conjunction with a medieval zoo...In these galleries visitors...were soaked to the skin on pulling the handle of one of the machines, then found themselves precipitated through a trap-door into a sack filled ith feathers or even soot, when they tried to run away.
I wonder if they ever suspended the local mayor over a tub of water and threw balls at a target to see if they could dump him? Bet they did.
The chapters are arranged first by means (Road, Bridges and Hospitality, Sea-Routes, Ports and Ships) and then by travelers themselves, explorers, merchants, royalty, soldiers and the notorious Free Companies.
It was inevitable that these companies should be formed during a period when there were no regular paid standing armies...It is difficult to find anywhere in the records a favourable comment on the Free Companies in the Middle Ages...Roads were rendered dangerous by them to travellers, fairs could not be held, craftsmen and traders could not pursue their livelihood, nor peasants cultivate their fields, monks had to flee from monasteries...
The reputation of wandering scholars called goliards suffered likewise:
These wandering clerks are wont to roam about the world and visit all its cities till much learning makes them mad; for in Paris they seek the liberal arts, in Orleans classics, at Salerno medicine, at Toledo magic, but nowhere manners or morals.
Tsk.
And I was delighted to learn that
There were of course many women entertainers among the lower ranks of jongleurs. These were mainly dancers who performed sword dances and acrobatics, balancing on the points of swords and aiding jugglers.
The magician's assistant in the cleavage-y glittery costume has a long history.
So, we all know about the cloud, right? The whole of human knowledge and interaction connected through a big bunch of internet servers stationed all over the planet. Never has so much information been so available to so many. Never have so many comment threads been available to so many trolls.
But what if they aren't trolls? What if this assimilation of information and connectivity allows all the disgruntled patriots/anarchists/skinheads/tea partiers/greenies/terrorists a "room" in which to feed on each others' hatred for the world as it is? And then facilitate their ability to manifest that hatred in a series of attacks that will destroy that world, without any idea of the consequences? Or, as one of Barnes' characters puts it
Whenever some damn idiot starts wanting life to have meaning, he finishes by helping other people to meaningless deaths.
This is the short version, of course, you have to read Barnes' book (the first of three, I've got the second on order and I'm praying he's writing the third one as we speak) to understand what he's getting at here, but in the meantime you'll be on a white-knuckle ride through a sequence of worldwide catastrophes, after each of which you think, "Okay, that's it, his locker's empty, there's nothing else he can throw at these poor people." And then he does.
Of course a terrorist group piggybacks onto the Daybreak attacks, as they are called, and then there is that mysterious...nah. Won't spoil it for you. In the meantime, we drop in on a whole bunch of likeable, capable people who are doing their best to support and defend the Constitution and keep the US from dropping into complete chaos. The main character is Heather O'Grainne, head of the department that discovers Daybreak just too late, who winds up being sort of the enforcer for the guy who becomes essentially the constitutionally provided for (yeah, you read that right) dictator of the US. There is a terrific journalist character, Chris, through whose eyes we see what's going on around the country, but Heather is at the center of everything. We also get to follow the Daybreakers around and then see in horrific detail the kind of death and destruction they are wreaking, sometimes to themselves, because you just know a lot a people are going to be out for someone's blood. And then we get to drop in on those affected, the people who are trying so hard to pull their families and communities back from the edge (love Pale Bluff, Illinois). And the right wing nuts (or not) creating personal fiefdoms (you'll love the Castle Movement), and the politicians who sort of personify that old adage, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
There has been a fashion in dystopian literature lately (Hunger Games, Madeleine E. Robins' The Stone War, Susan Beth Pfeffer's The World We Knew series, Diana Peterfreund's For Darkness Shows the Stars, to name just a few), but this is the first book I kept looking up from and wondering how I'd do if the world ended tomorrow but I survived. I'm okay for water, I'm on a well. Oh wait, it's got an electric pump. I've got a wood stove, I'm okay for heat. Oh wait, I don't own a chain saw, or even a hatchet. I've got canned goods and a freezer, I'd be okay for food. For a while. So then I thought, okay, I need help, but why should anyone who can survive take me in, what skills do I have to offer? And then I remembered: I can knit. Wow. I'm so in.
Spooky and powerful book. An exemplar of the "if this goes on" sf genre, and better than any horror story I ever read for scaring the bejeezus out of me. Can't wait to read the next one.
Captain Gabriel Lacey, veteran of the Peninsular War in Regency era England, injured, prey to melancholia, retired on half pay, lives a hand-to-mouth existence in rooms over a bakery in Covent Garden. Until one day a girl goes missing, possibly kidnapped, possibly by a member of Parliament. In the brutal rough-and-tumble that is Regency England's underworld, no one cares what happened to her. Except Gabriel.
Which is pretty much the plot of all of these novels. In this, the seventh in the series, Gabriel goes home to Norfolk with his affianced bride to check out his ancestral home, abandoned after his father died and in great need of repair before they move in. He also carries with him a missive from Denis to one of Denis' many minions, which causes the minion to decamp forthwith and mayhem to ensue.
Gabriel is such a good, decent guy, who wants the world to be better than it is and so determined to make the occasional corner of it so, you can't help but like and admire him and cheer him on. The cast of characters includes Grenville, heir to Brummel whose acquaintance with Gabriel moves from fashion to friendship, Marianne, the annoying actress-slash-courtesan who lives upstairs from Gabriel, Pomeroy, Gabriel's ex-sergeant and a Bow Street Runner bent on profit, James Denis, the cold-eyed king of London's criminal class, Lady Breckenridge, Gabriel's acid-tongued, billiard-playing, cigarillo-smoking love interest, friend Louisa Brandon, her husband and foe Aloysius Brandon, and more.
This isn't Jane Austen's England, it isn't even Georgette Heyer's, it's grimy and smelly and terrifying and tragic. Justice, try as Gabriel might, is not always done. Also, Gabriel never wins a fight, he is always getting the crap kicked out of him by somebody, which leads me to wonder how he made such a successful soldier. But that's all the criticism I got. Fun.
Earlier this year I was transiting through Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. I wandered into a bookstore and found an entire carousel devoted to the adventures of Asterix the Gaul. There went my trip budget.
Asterix and Obelix occupy a small corner of Gaul in the time of Julius Caesar. Thanks to the magic potion of the resident druid, Getafix (the names are almost the best part), the duo triumphantly defends the borders of their village against Caesar’s legions, to the legions’ great dismay (“I hate those Gauls.”).
My personal favorite is Asterix and Cleopatra where they travel to Egypt to help Getafix’s buddy Edifis win an architectural contest between Caesar and Cleopatra. Oh, and the Sphinx’s nose? Obelix did that. And the Egyptian characters speak in hieroglyphics. Don't worry, translation provided.
I also love Asterix in Spain, a sort of "Ransom of Red Chief" homage where Asterix and Obelix come to the assistance of a young Iberian man who says, proudly and repeatedly, "I am the son of Huevos y Bacon." Who wouldn't want to help him out?
But they're all great, especially the first ones with Goscinny writing and Uderzo illustrating. In this graphic novel series there is great storytelling, superb drawing, awful puns, wonderful sound effects (yes, really), and sneakily, insidiously, while you’re laughing, you’re learning. Go get some.
Lieutenant Billy Boyle wakes up in a field hospital, wounded and with no memory of who he is or what the hell he's doing in the middle of the American invasion of Sicily. He regains the vertical just in time to be conscripted into the front lines of Colonel Jim Gavin's 505th Division paratroopers, who are barely holding their own against a German division of Tiger tanks. From there events, as they say, progress, all across the unforgiving Sicilian countryside, involving a conspiracy to make a killing forging currency, which may or may not include the Mafia, who may be a little conflicted when it comes to which side they're on. All this and a cameo appearance by Bill Mauldin. It doesn't get any better than that.
This is the third in the Billy Boyle series, featuring the aforesaid Billy, whose day job was a detective in the Boston P.D. before his mother starting combing through their relatives to find Billy a nice quiet job that would keep him on this side of the Atlantic for the duration of the war. The relative she settles on is Uncle Ike, also known as General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Uncle Ike puts Billy to work as his very own special investigator, which in book 1 (Billy Boyle) has Billy invading Norway pretty much single-handedly and which in book 2 (First Wave) has Billy going ashore in Algiers ahead of everyone else in the US Army.
Billy, dedicated to a quiet life, who had only just made detective before being snatched in the maelstrom of world war by his uncle, is a reluctant hero, but
Plenty of guys were going to die in this war; there was no cause to murder one more.
and that essential decency, that stubborn determination to see justice done, that's the heart of Billy's character.
By Blood Alone, Billy realizes something else about himself:
I was bleeding, on the run from mobsters and MPs, and driving like a maniac to rendezvous with my friends in a stolen, shot-up jeep. I loved it. I had been wondering who I was only days ago. This was who: I was on the hunt, enjoying the chase, living by my wits. Living or dying. That sobered me up. Then I thought it was funny again and laughed, a mad cackle that ended as I coughed and hawked up road dust.
In the meantime, we get a front-row, mud-chewing, dust-eating seat to history. Benn's author's notes are great, too. Well worth reading, I've already got the next three on my to-read shelf.
Robert Broke moves to Florence after the tragic death of his wife and unborn child, and stumbles into a conspiracy to fake and sell Etruscan artifacts about which he knows far too much for the comfort of the crooks. His friends rally round to find out the truth.
There's your generic capsule summary of the plot, and it's a good one, but oh, the characters are lovely, especially the expatriate English, as for example
Miss Plant was, in every sense of the word, the leading lady of the English colony in Florence. She had been there since around the beginning of the century. The accident that Italy had happened to be on the wrong side in the Second World War had not incommoded her at all. It had, in truth, served to emphasize her standing and increase her prestige. It was true that the Italian authorities, badgered beyond endurance by the Germans, and after exhausting every excuse for delay, had eventually agreed to take Miss Plant into custody as an enemy alien. The experiment had not been a success.
to the extreme discomfort and eventual post-war social ostracism of the Questore, the Italian official who had so briefly taken her into custody. Then there is the English counsel, Sir Gerald Weighhill, pronounced "Whale"in case there is any doubt after the following passage:
Sir Gerald was the finest specimen of all Weighhills to date. He turned the scale, in his underpants, at two hundred fifty pounds, moved with the majesty of an aircraft carrier, and needed, unkind persons asserted, almost as much seaway to turn in. While he was still at an early age it had become clear that such talents must lead him into the Foreign Service.
And so it does. There are some marvelous Italian characters, like Tina and her mother Annunziata, Marco the Sindaco and Riccasole the attorney, and the bad guys are conscienceless enough to send a chill down the spine, and the setting is wish-you-were-there Tuscany. A fun read all around.
A wide-ranging selection of viewpoints by writers to Morocco, from the romantic
The every-changing scene is a kaleidoscope of Eastern fancy: Ali Baba and the forty thieves, Blue-beard, Aladdin and the Grand Vizier -- all in succession pass before us.--Budgett Meakin
to the brutally real
As the corpse went past the flies left the rstaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it, but they came back a few minutes later.--George Orwell
There is a mesmerizing as-told-to author Gavin Maxwell (Ring of Bright Water) eyewitness account of the brutal end of one regime
I was only a child when these things happened, but I remember them well, though I don't like to remember them or to think that I laughed to see a man burnt alive.
And you won't enjoy reading it, either, but you won't be able to stop yourself. There are marvelous word pictures
On the fringes of the square, letter-writers and fortune-tellers sit cross-legged with their clients; a solitary greybeard listens intently to his supplicant before handing him a minute philtre and a folded charm.'A Taleb -- student of the magic arts,' Quentin explains. 'The most experienced have the power to resolve unrequited passion by summon the object of your dreams, or to reunite you with a lost love.'
Moroccans seem very suggestible to occult practices, genies and the like.'
"The plural's "jinn."'--Anthony Gladstone-Thompson
It's a couple of hundred years in the future and mankind has created a society free from want. Everyone is rich, no one is hungry or without shelter. What's the catch?
There's nothing to do. Except sit around and watch the meeds, which most do.
So Susan Teraville (aka Crazy Science Girl) and her other loser friends decide to stow away on the milk run of the Virgo, a cargo ship in orbit between Earth and Mars, and make themselves famous enough to become official celebrities, with their own meeds, for which they will get paid more than for sitting around doing nothing. (Some people are just never satisfied.)
As you might expect from a novel by John Barnes, all does not go according to plan, beginning with an accident (or was it?) that kills most of Virgo's crew and knocks her way off course, followed by a subsequent series of mysterious accidents (or are they?) that whittle down the losers down one at a time. Coping with disaster teaches Susan and her crew that maybe they aren't the losers they or their society thought they were, and the last chapter is is maybe the most satisfying revenge fantasy I've ever read.
A lot going on here, including interpolatory chapters called "Notes for the Interested." Barnes writes
In the main text, I'll explain only as muc as a reader needs to follow the story; if it's just more cool science upon which you may wish to geek, I'll package it in a Note for the Interested. You ca read the whole book and follow the story without reading a single Note for the Interested (if you're not interested). On the other hand, if you are interested, they're easy to find.
To paraphrase John Le Carre, this novel wears many hats upon its head. First off, it is a slam-bang action adventure story, a Tom Swift novel without the adverbs and with the tech based in reality. It's an exemplar of the sf "if this goes on" novel--the court case upon which the survival of the Virgo hangs is uncomfortably possible, or it is at least from a conservative perspective. It's a character study, in that it looks at what happens to five distinct character types locked up on a tin can in the middle of a vast expanse of nothing for almost two years, and since the narrative is in Susan's voice it is also an examination of the art and results of command.
Losers in Space would be a terrific novel to teach in high school. Teenagers will really relate to the characters, it's an interesting literary choice, and the Notes are a great first step into can-do science. A fun, fascinating and terrifying read.
A ripsnorter of an action adventure near future tale. Mankind has moved on to the asteroid belt and the gas planet moons but he hasn't entirely outgrown Tsiolkovsky's cradle. Earth is feuding with Mars, Mars is feuding with Earth, the Outer Planets Alliance is feuding with everyone, and the introduction of an alien bioweapon into this volatile mix brings them all to the brink of a war that will put a final period to human existence.
Except, and you knew there was going to be an except, for the efforts of salvage ship XO Jim Holden and Ceres beat cop Miller, one a straight-up guy who keeps getting runabouts/ships/habitats shot out from under him, the other an increasingly and disturbingly active member of the "justice delayed is justice denied" mindset. Together, can they save the Solar System? Maybe, if they destroy the Mormons' megaship first.
Oh yeah, if you like nuts and bolts sf and lots of space battles, this book is for you. Corey has a real gift for imagining what life will be like on the other side of the gravity well and, better, dumping us right in the middle of it. I'm into the second in the series already.
Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe by Thomas Cahill
Everyday Life of Medieval Travellers by Marjorie Rowling
A Death in Norfolk by Ashley Gardner
The Family Tomb by Michael Gilbert
Marrakesh: Through Writers' Eyes by Barnaby Rogerson
Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey