Some Book Recommendations
Of late I've mostly been reading texts on marionette construction or the correct placement of lights for shadow puppetry. Or notably a book on Freudian interpretation of fairy tales (they're all pretty much about penises apparently). However, I have read a few texts not related to puppetry (or Freudian genitalia).
First was a recommendation from bonedancer, taken from his extensive Library of the Awesome, The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. It's probably the best new fantasy I've read since another of his recommendations, The Lies of Locke Lamora. It's well written with genuinely interesting characters. It has a spoiled, stuck up aristocratic Captain in the army whose only interests are booze, gambling, women and fencing. A tough commoner, raised up to major for having the unprecedented gall to be both a good soldier and decent fencer. An embittered ex-pretty boy soldier, captured and tortured during the last war and now a crippled inquisitor. And a barbarian Northman, battered, betrayed, survivor of a thousand combats, with a fearsome reputation you can't understand based on his relatively mild nature, who just wants to be left alone. It's filled with intrigues and fights and no one is quite what they seem. Except the aristocrat who pretty much remains a dick throughout :)
Read it if you like this sort of thing, it's very good.
Next book is Heartless by Gail Carriger. It's the most recent of her Alexia Tarabotti novels of which I have all. It's kinda steampunk with werewolves and vampires. And wit, lots and lots of wit. Imagine a Victorian Britain where Her Royal Majesty's Might comes in the form of her armies and the core of those armies are her werewolf regiments. The vampires are suitably vampiric but also quite interestingly done. They're not entirely as per your usual vampires, organised as hives with a queen save for a few "roves", males usually, who have broken free. The UK is very tolerant of the supernatural world in contrast to Europe (particularly Italy) and the US. It's a nicely realised world. The heroine is a "soulless" meaning she'll simply die when the time comes, no afterlife or ghosthood on the cards. A relatively terrible but rare state of affairs with one bonus, a touch from a soulless returns a supernatural creature to it's mortal state whilst contact remains. In this latest installment our heroine is hampered in her usual imdomitable form by being 8 months pregnant with a baby that was thought to be impossible, half soulless, half-werewolf. And which the vampire hives have decided needs to destroyed. I'm throughly enjoying it, like I did all the others, much as I enjoy Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels. There are just some great bits, this had me giggling for ages:
Of all the people Felicity should not be overexposed to, it was Lord Akeldama, on the basis of cattiness alone. If left together for too long, the two of them might actually take over the civilised world, through sheer application of snide remarks.
Do read this and the rest of them if you haven't, they're well worth it.
First was a recommendation from bonedancer, taken from his extensive Library of the Awesome, The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. It's probably the best new fantasy I've read since another of his recommendations, The Lies of Locke Lamora. It's well written with genuinely interesting characters. It has a spoiled, stuck up aristocratic Captain in the army whose only interests are booze, gambling, women and fencing. A tough commoner, raised up to major for having the unprecedented gall to be both a good soldier and decent fencer. An embittered ex-pretty boy soldier, captured and tortured during the last war and now a crippled inquisitor. And a barbarian Northman, battered, betrayed, survivor of a thousand combats, with a fearsome reputation you can't understand based on his relatively mild nature, who just wants to be left alone. It's filled with intrigues and fights and no one is quite what they seem. Except the aristocrat who pretty much remains a dick throughout :)
Read it if you like this sort of thing, it's very good.
Next book is Heartless by Gail Carriger. It's the most recent of her Alexia Tarabotti novels of which I have all. It's kinda steampunk with werewolves and vampires. And wit, lots and lots of wit. Imagine a Victorian Britain where Her Royal Majesty's Might comes in the form of her armies and the core of those armies are her werewolf regiments. The vampires are suitably vampiric but also quite interestingly done. They're not entirely as per your usual vampires, organised as hives with a queen save for a few "roves", males usually, who have broken free. The UK is very tolerant of the supernatural world in contrast to Europe (particularly Italy) and the US. It's a nicely realised world. The heroine is a "soulless" meaning she'll simply die when the time comes, no afterlife or ghosthood on the cards. A relatively terrible but rare state of affairs with one bonus, a touch from a soulless returns a supernatural creature to it's mortal state whilst contact remains. In this latest installment our heroine is hampered in her usual imdomitable form by being 8 months pregnant with a baby that was thought to be impossible, half soulless, half-werewolf. And which the vampire hives have decided needs to destroyed. I'm throughly enjoying it, like I did all the others, much as I enjoy Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels. There are just some great bits, this had me giggling for ages:
Of all the people Felicity should not be overexposed to, it was Lord Akeldama, on the basis of cattiness alone. If left together for too long, the two of them might actually take over the civilised world, through sheer application of snide remarks.
Do read this and the rest of them if you haven't, they're well worth it.