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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
Jun 23 2020, 2:50pm
Post #1 of 5
(274 views)
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It's the solstice, Father's Day, double-birthday reading thread!
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So we're now past the solstice, whether it's the winter one or the summer one, of course. My husband had his birthday on Father's Day, leading to many pleasant phone calls, and I had mine yesterday. Which, as gramma reminded us over on Main, is the day Bilbo returns to the Shire.
I'm now listening to Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookshop, by Robin Sloan. A young man, desperate for a job, goes to work in a musty and mysterious San Francisco book shop frequented by musty and mysterious people. The protagonist is not only a computer guy himself, his girlfriend works for Google---the description of the Google campus is fun, to say the least---meaning there's more technical material than I'd anticipated. But the story is unusual and I'm wondering where it's going to go.
On paper I'm reading The Templars' Last Secret, by Martin Walker, umpteenth in his Inspector Bruno mystery series. Walker does a good job filling in the setting and background for a newcomer to the series, and I'm loving the French background, to say nothing of the French food! But Bruno himself seems a bit of a Mary-Sue character, practically perfect in every way.
Since the “secret” seems to be a medieval Arab ms that perhaps the Templars brought back to Europe with them, the plot infrequently touches something historical and mostly has to do with chasing down Palestinian jihadists, with looong stretches detailing police procedure and police politics. I'm still reading, but very quickly!
So what have you been reading?
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow....
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Annael
Immortal
Jun 23 2020, 3:15pm
Post #2 of 5
(263 views)
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On the second "Campion" mystery by Allingham
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Well, so far I'm not impressed with her mystery-writing skills, and I'm already detecting a formula, but the settings and the characters are fun. Perhaps she gets better with time, but she's not in the same league as Christie, Sayers, Marsh, Rendell, etc.
I am a dreamer of words, of written words.
-- Gaston Bachelard
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
My Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/...id=1590637780&sr=8-1
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Jun 30 2020, 2:35pm
Post #3 of 5
(184 views)
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I'm re-reading it since Apple TV is going to make a series from it. Just about everything is done via dialogue: character development, action, and exposition, with some occasional narrative descriptions. It works pretty well since Asimov is a breezy writer, but it's a little disappointing that the characters are one-dimensional and forgettable. It's more politics and historical forces than science fiction, unless you think levitating taxi cabs are "OMG! The future is cool!"
For some reason that I'll have to dig up elsewhere, Asimov centers everything around strongmen who either seize or inherit power, with democracy mostly irrelevant. For books written in the 1940s and 50s, there is some diversity in ethnicity, so not everyone is a white guy, but everyone is a guy, except for secretaries, who are women, of course, and some of them are efficient, which is praise, don't you know. Though I wouldn't single out Asimov for that, it's just kinda funny to read it.
It did make me think of The Expanse, which I only know via TV, but the series follows the books closely enough in characters. Lots of women in The Expanse, but they're almost never at the apex and are always taking orders from men. I don't think popular sci-fi has come that far in representing society in the future and hasn't even caught up with the present.
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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
Jun 30 2020, 3:24pm
Post #4 of 5
(181 views)
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...was well-known in the f/sf community for being a, ahem, traditional male. I'll say nothing further.
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow....
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Jun 30 2020, 5:03pm
Post #5 of 5
(176 views)
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I read it originally back in the 1980s, so there were a lot of writers like him, but I think he probably stands with "the most traditional."
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