Blurt! — Sben

Blurt! — Sben
pile.org

Finished rereading The Truelove by Patrick O’Brian, book 15 of the Aubrey/Maturin series, and the third book of a circumnavigation of the globe. Another well-crafted book, focusing on the relationship among the ship’s officers; most of the naval action is relegated to a montage sequence late in the book.

Also

Finished rereading Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Boy do I have complicated feelings about this. On the one hand, the concepts are fascinating and the storytelling is top-notch. On the other, there’s a bunch of pandering to nerds and contempt for non-nerds, especially in the first half of the book, not to mention the casual sexism. (I would be curious to see what the book would have been like in the alternate universe where he wrote it today.) I used to recommend this book without reservations, but now it would be more along the lines of The Lord of the Rings (read this, but don’t fail to notice that the people with dark skin are bad guys).

— 5/29/2022 6:43pm ∞
Finished reading Spear by Nicola Griffith, a short, fun novel retelling the story of Percival and the Holy Grail. (It’s just around a quarter the length of Hild!) A lovely digestif of a book.

— 5/9/2022 9:44pm ∞
Finished rereading Scary Go Round volumes 1–8 by John Allison. I first read these as they were published online (starting with 2004’s “1840 and All That”); it was very interesting to reread them as a whole work, seeing the progression of Allison’s artistic and storytelling styles and interests.

— 5/9/2022 11:56am ∞
My recollection was correct: Hild does belong on the shelf next to Lavinia and Matrix.

— 5/6/2022 7:23am ∞
Griffith has finished the first draft and at least the second round of rewrites of the next part of the story, Menewood.

— 5/6/2022 7:18am ∞