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Sounds interesting; let us know what you think of this account of Richard Nixon's rule.
For relaxation, I read fantasy sometimes, and this week, one of my favourite authors, Guy Gavriel Kay, is set to publish his latest book, 'Children of Earth and Sky.'
I have already placed an order at my bookstore, and expect to collect it later this week..
Guy Gavriel Kay is not especially prolific, but he writes beautifully, offers well rounded believable characters (including good female characters), interesting settings (usually alternative versions of well known historical settings) backed by meticulous historical research which he intelligently re-imagines, and usually, has an interesting story to tell.
I have already placed an order at my bookstore, and expect to collect it later this week..
Guy Gavriel Kay is not especially prolific, but he writes beautifully, offers well rounded believable characters (including good female characters), interesting settings (usually alternative versions of well known historical settings) backed by meticulous historical research which he intelligently re-imagines, and usually, has an interesting story to tell.
Picked up Hugh Johnson's 'The World Atlas of Wine' (7th Edition) today.
Now, I had bought it ages ago, - a beautifully produced massive hardback - a sort of encyclopaedia of wine - but only collected it today. Gorgeous book. In a way, I suppose I see it as a companion volume to Hugh Johnson's superb 'Story of Wine', which I treated myself to (again) a few weeks ago as my original copy had gone missing in the mists of time.
Now, I had bought it ages ago, - a beautifully produced massive hardback - a sort of encyclopaedia of wine - but only collected it today. Gorgeous book. In a way, I suppose I see it as a companion volume to Hugh Johnson's superb 'Story of Wine', which I treated myself to (again) a few weeks ago as my original copy had gone missing in the mists of time.
in the spirit of finishing Fallout 3
great book, i reccomend it for u and yo dad
powerful book, dark and lyrical.
it took me a little to adapt to the writing, but overall great. ****
has anyone seen the movie?
Well, I have finished Guy Gavriel Kay's recently released (this week) latest work - 'Children of Earth and Sky' and recommend it highly.
If you like literate, intelligent, fantasy - a kind of alternative history, with solidly crafted world building, excellent character development (for both secondary characters and extremely well written female characters), with wit and humanity, his works and his worlds are a very good place to explore.
If you like literate, intelligent, fantasy - a kind of alternative history, with solidly crafted world building, excellent character development (for both secondary characters and extremely well written female characters), with wit and humanity, his works and his worlds are a very good place to explore.
Gosh.
He started out - recommended by Christopher Tolkein (nephew of the legendary..) - as a sort of literary executor to the legendary J R R Tolkien (and, by all accounts, discharged this duty in an exemplary manner). For example, he is supposed to have worked pretty extensively on the preparation of The Silmarillion.
The upshot of this, inevitably, is that his earliest work - a trilogy - (the Fionnavar trilogy) is heavily (over heavily, to my mind) influenced by Tolkien. In fact, my personal recommendation would be to skip this - and its sequel (written years later, a book called Ysabel), completely. Personally, I didn't care for them, at all.
Most of his other work ranges from the extremely good, to the excellent, to the outstanding.
While the books range from country to country, era to era, there are a few grace notes - a kind of chuckling in-joke - which appear in some of the books, subtle references to stuff, people and places that have gone before.
This latest book - 'Children of Sky and Earth' - is, yes, a stand alone, but it can be seen as a 'long' (very long, we are talking about about thousand years, approximately) after - a not quite sequel, of two earlier books - (which might have been but never were a trilogy), 'Sailing to Sarantium' and 'Lord of Emperors'.
In essence, Children of Earth and Sky is set in an alternative Venice, Dubrovnik, Prague, and Byzantium 25 years - and a few added - after the Constantinople/Byzantium of that world fell to the Ottomans. The real Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 (no dates are mentioned in the book) but - given that, with a bit of historical licence, we are talking about an alternative Adriatic and related areas circa an alternative 1480, it is a very nicely taken interpretation and/or version of history.
Sailing to Sarantium, and Lord of Emperors were both set in an alternative (and superbly sketched) empire of an alternative Constantinople in the reign of an alternative Justinian (roughly 400 AD/CE). Two brilliant books, I loved them.
Actually, I was surprised, and delighted (and it wouldn't have been picked up on if you hadn't read the earlier Sarantium books - closely) - some of the reviews (erroneously) referred to other works as an inspiration, but the Sarantium books offer some of the cultural - and fantastical (even if exceedingly subtle) context for this work.
Now, you don't have to have read them; but, if you have, you will enjoy this book just that little bit more, as a few of the - almost asides - will make a bit more sense.
So, my preferences: This is something, which, by definition, is very subjective.
I loved the two Sarantium books (Sailng to Sarantium, and Lord of Emperors - this is a story in two books; if you like Byzantium/Constantinople circa the reign of Justinian, this is wonderful stuff).
Others I really liked were 'Tigana' (a kind of alternative Renaissance Italy, with possibly the strongest fantastical element in almost all of of Guy Gavriel Kay's oeuvre); and 'A Song for Arbonne' (a take on an alternative Provence at the time of the Albigensian Crusade).
Now, while I liked The Lions of Al-Rassan (his take on medieval Spain, about to kick out his alternative Moors), it was my least favourite of his own (as in not Tolkien derived) works.
The Last Light of the Sun is a strange work, set in an alternative Viking plagued England, one ruled by an alternative Alfred the Great. I thought it gripping.
The two Chinese (alternative history) books are also excellent, but require close attention. They are Under Heaven and River of Stars (and the events of, and the world of, the second of these have been significantly influenced by the events of the first, which occurred a few centuries earlier, in the same world).
I think that you would enjoy them; they are intelligent thoughtful, thought-provoking books; the world building is excellent, the characters - one of Kay's strengths is how he gives his secondary characters credible depth and backstories - engaging, the female characters extremely well written, and the story, a beguiling version of a history that might of been, could have been, or never was.
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thank you for thoughtful and as always extremely helpful comments.
i am intrigued and will definitively add this to my (already long but always extending) pile of books to read.
Well, @Don't panic, I suppose that I should add that I know that part of the world fairly well: I spent months in Prague, I have visited Dubrovnik (not long after the Balkan wars), - indeed, I have observed several elections in parts of Croatia - and walked that long promenade (in Dubrovnik) described - pretty accurately - in the book, and have spent some time in Istanbul, visiting that glorious city on several occasions.
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I honestly think you will enjoy these books; they are intelligent (not all fantasy writing is, though the best of it achieves this), the violence and sex are never gratuitous, but necessary and relevant to character and plot, and the characters are treated with respect and given beliefs and motivations (and backstories) that are credibly in accordance with the world and belief systems in which they live.
They are also beautifully written, subtle, the kind of works that allow character to develop, setting to be explored, and story given time to breath.
Kay does his homework.
Now, as someone who has been a professional historian, I am anal about historical fiction passing itself off as historical fact; Kay doesn't do that. He does his his historical research (and gives sources - and comments on those sources - at the end of his books for those interested in pursuing study of these societies - the real ones - any further), and incorporates it elegantly and with narrative conviction into his alternative worlds.
Now, he does this so well (and remember, I used to teach Medieval and Renaissance history) that reading him, I have occasionally found myself grinning - a sort of salute - the kind of grin that is an acknowledgement that says 'well done, I spotted that reference'. That is how good he is.
Given the plethora of fantasy writers penning works nowadays, and the fact that there is market for this stuff, I am at something of a loss to understand why Guy Gavriel Kay is not better known, nor more widely celebrated. I think he is first rate.
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I honestly think you will enjoy these books; they are intelligent (not all fantasy writing is, though the best of it achieves this), the violence and sex are never gratuitous, but necessary and relevant to character and plot, and the characters are treated with respect and given beliefs and motivations (and backstories) that are credibly in accordance with the world and belief systems in which they live.
They are also beautifully written, subtle, the kind of works that allow character to develop, setting to be explored, and story given time to breath.
Kay does his homework.
Now, as someone who has been a professional historian, I am anal about historical fiction passing itself off as historical fact; Kay doesn't do that. He does his his historical research (and gives sources - and comments on those sources - at the end of his books for those interested in pursuing study of these societies - the real ones - any further), and incorporates it elegantly and with narrative conviction into his alternative worlds.
Now, he does this so well (and remember, I used to teach Medieval and Renaissance history) that reading him, I have occasionally found myself grinning - a sort of salute - the kind of grin that is an acknowledgement that says 'well done, I spotted that reference'. That is how good he is.
Given the plethora of fantasy writers penning works nowadays, and the fact that there is market for this stuff, I am at something of a loss to understand why Guy Gavriel Kay is not better known, nor more widely celebrated. I think he is first rate.
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i last visited Dubrovnik ages ago, just before the war, on a motorcycle trip down the dalmatian coast.
i remember walking the city walls and thinking that was a place where one could happily retire.
the walls, the fortress, the palaces, the Stradun, the port. Beautiful city.
such a pity it received so much damage during the war. but i understand it has been properly restored.
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is it good?
One of the elections I observed in early 2000 in Croatia took me to Dubrovnik, and, by then, the city had been pretty much completely repaired.
another town with some similar characteristics (both historical and architectural, including periods of semi-independence, heavy venetian influences, an amazing well-preserved fortress), although not nearly as gorgeous as dubrovnik/ragusa is Napflios, in greece.
Kind of out of the usual 'greek' circuit, but it was such a wonderful surprise when i just happened to arrive there on a solo backpacking trip in greece in the last millennium.
i remember roaming the Palamidi castle, on an astounding mediterranean day, with absolutely zero people around me and feeling i was there and then, looking over the horizon and expecting galleys coming back from Lepanto pulling it an any time (and before the scholar in you comes out and correct me, i am aware they don't match in time and place, but that was my feeling at the time
).i realize it sounds weird, but was exilarating.
another town with some similar characteristics (both historical and architectural, including periods of semi-independence, heavy venetian influences, an amazing well-preserved fortress), although not nearly as gorgeous as dubrovnik/ragusa is Napflios, in greece.
Kind of out of the usual 'greek' circuit, but it was such a wonderful surprise when i just happened to arrive there on a solo backpacking trip in greece in the last millennium.
i remember roaming the Palamidi castle, on an astounding mediterranean day, with absolutely zero people around me and feeling i was there and then, looking over the horizon and expecting galleys coming back from Lepanto pulling it an any time (and before the scholar in you comes out and correct me, i am aware they don't match in time and place, but that was my feeling at the time
i realize it sounds weird, but was exilarating.
Sounds wonderful, and I know those moments of awe and wonder, when you feel you might have been transported to the past. (However, Lepanto is an interesting one….)
An earlier election in Croatia, in that same year in 2000, saw me dispatched to the Istrian peninsula, and the kind individuals - from the municipal authority - in Pula opened the amphitheatre especially for myself, a colleague and my staff at our request. Apart from ourselves, the amphitheatre was completely empty.
This is a stunning amphitheatre - it dates from the time of the Roman Republic, and is perfectly preserved (the war never got to the Istrian peninsula, which is very strongly influenced by Venice across the Adriatic) and I remember the perfect acoustics, and flawless sight lines of the amphitheatre as I walked the sand, and later, clambered up the seating, bathed in the sharp light of a setting late January sun. Again, it was astounding, and - yes, exhilarating.
Thanks for the brief reviews. I downloaded a sample of Sailing to Sarantium for my Kindle.
Well, I hope you enjoy it.
Kay's worlds, and works, build slowly, but the payoff is usually well worth the wait.
Just finished Leviathan Wakes upon which The Expanse (SciFi Channel)- good scifi read, recommended! Next, book 2- Caliban's War.
It was a bit dark and depressing for my liking. Certinly not a feel good movie.
Norton's Introduction to Literature
The Story and It's Writer
What If?
and
Bruce Lee The Tao of Gung Fu
The Story and It's Writer
What If?
and
Bruce Lee The Tao of Gung Fu
Great book and far better than the TV adaptation which was a bit of a mess.