“I might as well be wearing a red shirt.”
From “100 Quotes Every Geek Should Know,” via Wired News. Some but by no means all of my favorites: 6. “If you can’t take a little bloody nose, maybe you oughtta go back home and crawl under your bed. It’s not safe out here. It’s wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross;…
A Death in Norfolk by Ashley Gardner
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.
# Permanent link to This isn’t Jane Austen’s England, it isn’t even Georgette Heyer’s…
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.
# Permanent link to The Sphinx’s nose? Obelix did that.
A great little movie you’ve never seen.
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.
# Permanent link to A front-row, mud-chewing, dust-eating seat to World War II history
The Family Tomb by Michael Gilbert
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.
# Permanent link to The setting is wish-you-were-there Tuscany.
Marrakesh: Through Writers' Eyes by Barnaby Rogerson
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
Lots of good history here, too. Worth reading.
# Permanent link to A Kaleidoscope of Eastern Fancy
Hawaii’s true name is “Islands of the Gods.”
Losers in Space by John Barnes
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.
# Permanent link to Everyone is rich, no one is hungry or without shelter. What’s the catch?