Not, in my opinion, nearly as good as Colleen McCullough's Rome novels, but because it covers some of the same events from a different viewpoi
Not, in my opinion, nearly as good as Colleen McCullough's Rome novels, but because it covers some of the same events from a different viewpoint, quite interesting nonetheless.
Unfortunately, there's very little intersection. McCullough's tales focus on Julius Caesar (and his family), who is almost a bit character here, while Harris's focus on Cicero who is more than a bit character in McCullough's but far from central. otoh, perhaps that's entirely intentional on Harris's part. As McCullough wrote in the introduction to the first volume that was specifically about Julius Caesar, it gets hard to write fiction when the facts of the man's life are so well documented. It would be even harder for Harris to write fiction that covered the same ground that she had ploughed so well.
I quite often found Harris's tone jarring. It seemed too "modern". To be fair, perhaps McCullough's is just as modern, but because she was Australian, it seemed less so to me.
As always, synchronicity struck. I read the line "…Phoenicians whose ancestors had been priests of Tyrian Melcarth,…" while drinking a Maltese (Malta was once a Phoenician colony) wine called Melqart.
Everything I've read says that this is a trilogy, and I'm having trouble figuring out how Whyte can wrap it up in three books.
This first volume follow
Everything I've read says that this is a trilogy, and I'm having trouble figuring out how Whyte can wrap it up in three books.
This first volume follows William Wallace. The prologue begins with his execution, then we go back to see the life that led up to it. About as much is known about Wallace's early life as about Christ's, so Whyte has a lot of room to speculate, and he does it very well and believably.
Of course, there's a background history that is well-documented, though not much taught to we Sassenach's, so it was all pretty new to me, and interesting.
The frustrating part is that the story ends before any of the events that we probably all know from the movie Braveheart—which, of course, is also before the execution in the prologue—so what happens in the intervening years?
Still, I feel I know more, and with much more balance, than I knew before of Edward I's imperial ambitions in Scotland than I learned in school.
I remember my grade 6 teacher reading this to the class (44 years ago), but I've never read it myself. I was pleased to find that it's just about as m
I remember my grade 6 teacher reading this to the class (44 years ago), but I've never read it myself. I was pleased to find that it's just about as much fun as I remembered.
It's hard to imagine kids today being allowed to do almost any of the things Tom and Huck Finn get away with (of course, Huck would have been in the care of the Children's Aid…), or to imagine them being beaten as they were for the things they didn't get away with. But, Tom didn't do much that I wasn't doing at his age (except for witnessing murders), and corporal punishment in school wasn't quite dead yet; so in my childhood, things were not so very different except for the technology….
Still, even in my day I doubt a few dozen young children would be allowed to cross the Mississippi on a riverboat for a picnic, with only a handful of young adults to chaperon, and nobody would count heads when they got back aboard!
The times were certainly different, but while what Twain reports doesn't seem so different from what I remember of childhood, I can't help thinking that a lot of that is because of what he doesn't mention. While the word "nigger" is used often, it's not intended pejoratively, yet nowhere is there any mention of mistreatment of blacks: which doesn't ring true. There are certainly no black children in the school or church, and the closest Twain comes to actually admitting to mistreatment is to have Huck admit that he's occasionally sat down to eat beside "Uncle Jack", because you just have to do that sort of thing sometimes when you're starving.
I don't read Billy Boyle for the mysteries. The mysteries are no better than "okay"—far too much coincidence for my taste. But I love mysteries set in
I don't read Billy Boyle for the mysteries. The mysteries are no better than "okay"—far too much coincidence for my taste. But I love mysteries set in authentic historical settings, and Benn's WWII settings are as authentic as they come.
That said, once you get past the coincidence of Billy being asked by a friend to investigate one murder, and being sent to the same location by his bosses to investigate another, the mystery is pretty well done.
The most annoying thing about the book is the cover: it depicts Billy being hit over the head and pushed into a canal. A crime that occurs but is never solved in the book. The cover shows the assailant as being another soldier. Why? It seems a little too specific for the usual excuse: which is just that the artist didn't actually read the book.
There are no happy endings. As with most of Benn's books, this is his way of airing historical dirty laundry: in this case the shameful treatment of black American soldiers during WWII—as Benn points out, to the serious detriment of the war effort.
First things first: when I got this book it was tagged as a "romance". Thankfully, it is not.
When you have a book with both a male and a fema
First things first: when I got this book it was tagged as a "romance". Thankfully, it is not.
When you have a book with both a male and a female protagonist, and they do not even appear together in more than 95% of the story, it is not a romance — even if they should end up as lovers. [That's mostly for the reader of The Lions of al-Rassan, which was also not a romance…]
Now that that's off my chest.…
I said the other day that I loved Kay's blending of history, historical fiction and fantasy, but even then I was thinking that it's more "fantasyish" than "fantasy" and River of Stars brings this out starkly. Though ghosts, demons and spirits are considered just a fact of life in Kitan — as they would be for many of our ancestors, and even many people today — only three ghosts, one demon and one fox-spirit are ever seen. The demon is explained as trickery, and since none of the ghosts are seen by more than one person at a time, perhaps they're just hallucinations. But the fox-spirit is hard to dismiss: just Kay's way of pointing out that as historical as the novel may appear, it is just a novel!
I'm generally more interested in plot than character in a novel, but Kay's characters — even the lesser, and less likeable ones — are so well written that I can't help but love them. The story starts slowly, but then it's the story of two people's lives, and lives start the same way.
My only real complaint is with Kay's continual foreshadowing: "There are forks in every road, choices we make." he says. And says again and again, in slightly different words. In fact, if he'd said it in exactly the same words, as a refrain, I think it would have been less jarring.
For a journalist, Michael Rank's written English is pretty poor, though that unfortunately is pretty much the state of journalism today. The m
For a journalist, Michael Rank's written English is pretty poor, though that unfortunately is pretty much the state of journalism today. The most egregious error being that Muhammed "taught his followers the major tenants of the religion." "Tenets", dammit! He's also inconsistent in the use of the prophet's name. The cover says "From Muhammed to Burj Khalifa…" while the title page gives: "From Muhammad…"
I'm uncomfortable about the way he addresses Islam in places. Why does Rank use deliberately provocative language like "After claiming to receive a prophecy from God", when talking about Muhammed? "After receiving a prophecy…" would be palatable to Muslims and non-believers alike. Or, "he also stated that pagans and unbelievers cannot approach the Sacred Mosque, a statement which the Saudi Arabian Grand Mufti used in March 2012 as a pretext to call for all churches in the Arabian peninsula to be bulldozed." Given that he doesn't explain this statement at all, it merely appears intended to show the irrationality of Islam.
Still, this book does almost exactly what it promises: "By the end you will know as much about the Middle East as you would after a year-long college course [and] sound highly knowledgeable about world affairs to your friends and associates." The first claim is arguable — I learned more about the Middle East in High School history — but the second is certainly true!
I honestly don't know what happened with this book. I kept thinking I'd read it (after all, I'd bought it and put it on my e-reader), but apparently II honestly don't know what happened with this book. I kept thinking I'd read it (after all, I'd bought it and put it on my e-reader), but apparently I'd only read an excerpt (probably on tor.com), so I took far too long to get around to really reading it.
Fortunately, it hasn't gone stale in the m......more
I don't generally like mysteries with your flawed, self-hating, detectives, but I do love historical fiction, and Kerr's Bernie Gunther is a very specI don't generally like mysteries with your flawed, self-hating, detectives, but I do love historical fiction, and Kerr's Bernie Gunther is a very special case. When you're a non-Nazi cop in WW II Germany, forced to dance to Reynard Heydrich's tune, you have plenty of reason for self-hate.
Gunther is a good cop in a bad situation, and fighting a losing battle with his own morality – not because he's turning to evil, but simply because every time he tries to do something good, the best that's available is not-quite-as-bad. He feeds two old Jewish spinsters in his apartment building – but all it does is keep them alive long enough to be sent to the concentration camp. He routinely accedes to the wishes of his Nazi masters, purely to stop them using somebody else who would have no qualms about the things he's ordered to do. Of course he feels like committing suicide on a daily basis and – because he's a good man who thinks that he can somehow have a positive effect – day after day, he doesn't. It should be depressing, but somehow it isn't....more
Somewhere around a thousand authors must have tried their hands at Sherlock Holmes, as he's been so long out of copyright, so I don't really understanSomewhere around a thousand authors must have tried their hands at Sherlock Holmes, as he's been so long out of copyright, so I don't really understand how the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate really feels they have any particular right to choose an author to write an "authorized" Sherlock Holmes novel, but I must say they did a pretty good job in choosing Horowitz.
It's a long time since I have actually read Conan Doyle's novels, but this novel certainly reads the way I recall those stories. Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson and even Moriarty, seem totally authentic. The two intertwined cases show Holmes usual brand of brilliance in detection – though Horowitz’ version relies on a whopping great coincidence to tie them together. I can't help thinking Conan Doyle would not have approved.
Only once in a while did a glaring anachronism manage to creep in – I wonder if it's actually easier for an American to write about 1890 London than it would have been for someone living in London today. The one that jumped out at me was a police officer giving the arrested man his rights: "you are not obliged to say anything unless you desire to do so, but whatever you do say I shall take down in writing..." This wouldn't have happened prior to the Judges Rules of 1912, at least....more
I loved Wolf Hall and waited anxiously for my local library to get a copy of this sequel; so I was a little taken aback when a reader on an unrelated I loved Wolf Hall and waited anxiously for my local library to get a copy of this sequel; so I was a little taken aback when a reader on an unrelated discussion group said how much she'd disliked Wolf Hall. With that, I read Bring Up the Bodies in a slightly different light.
I still loved the book, but I have to admit the writing style is unusual, and could be distracting. It's almost first person: everything is told from Thomas Cromwell's point of view, and nothing happens without his presence, but "he" usually refers to Cromwell himself. It's almost as if Cromwell is personally telling a story in the third person. This sort of thing usually makes my brain hurt and causes me to throw the book across the room (though, of course, I'd never do this with a library book!), so I can understand why someone else might find it unreadable.
Beyond that, you probably need to be a fan of the Tudor period of history, and probably Henry VIII in particular. It seems that practically all of the characters are named with variations of Thomas, Richard or Henry. That's not Mantel's fault: these are all historical characters! I wouldn't be surprised if certain minor characters got left out of the story purely because they would add yet another Tom, Dick or Harry (and I guess it's no coincidence that "every Tom, Dick and Harry" is English idiom for "everybody"). This, and the generally turbulent politics of the period, lead to a storyline that has to be extremely confusing if you don't at least understand the church politics of the time (Reformation), the major houses of the English nobility, and of course, Henry's serial monogamy.
Those issues surmounted, it is a brilliant book. It's not intended to be a history, so no doubt license is taken with actual events, but it presents a fascinating and thrilling, possible, retelling of the events of Henry's reign — from the beggining of his dissatisfaction with Anne Boleyn to her execution and the coronation of Jane Seymour.
If you have trouble with the history, check out the equally good TV series The Tudors, which is historically quite accurate, and covers the same ground (particularly season 2) from different viewpoints....more
Howard W. Campbell, Jr, is writing his memoir as he sits in an Israeli prison cell, accused of war crimes in Germany during World War II. If you belieHoward W. Campbell, Jr, is writing his memoir as he sits in an Israeli prison cell, accused of war crimes in Germany during World War II. If you believe Howard W. Campbell, Jr, he's guilty as charged, but he's the only person whose direct testimony we're given. He surely was a high-ranking Nazi propagandist; he might have been an American spy. Certainly, some Americans seem to have conspired to protect him from war crimes charges at the end of the war, but even the man who recruited him as a spy doesn't seem to think his great service to the allied war effort makes up for the damage he did as a propagandist. On the other hand, the Israelis seem willing to acquit him if only he can prove the existence of the spymaster.
Throughout, Vonnegut dances around the questions of what a person's moral duties are in a time of worldwide insanity. We'd all like to think that we wouldn't be the people who helped send Jews to Auschwitz, but would we be able to stand against such insanity? Certainly Vonnegut has no interest in telling us either where the line between good and evil should be, or on which side of the line either author or readers stand.
In the end, Howard W. Campbell, Jr. seems to consider his death the final touch in his propaganda campaign. So it goes....more
Easy reading whodunnits, where even I can figure out the "who", but not so soon as to make the reading pointless.Easy reading whodunnits, where even I can figure out the "who", but not so soon as to make the reading pointless....more