#Peter Darbyshire

[thehappyscavenger]

Books Read in July 2024

Probably It Will Not Be Okay by Brekan Blakeslee

The first half of this was an incredibly unique dystopic work I will be thinking about for a long time. I'm just going to pretend the whole thing is the first half.

Good Behaviour by Molly Keane

I actually love books like this about decaying aristocracy and highly mannered societies and unreliable narrators. Deilcious and unpredicatable.

Nightmare Alley by William Lindsey Gresham

I don't care for Noirs at all and this really didn't change my opinion on that. This book felt almost overly constructed and like Gresham had a wonderful idea for an ending and wrote towards that but in a way that doesn't feel earned. Kind of a let down.

Has the World Ended Yet? by Peter Darbyshire

I feel like this book should be bigger or well more known. Scifi/superhero based short story about a world where the apocalypse is not quite here. Enjoyed it a lot even though it's harder scifi than I typically read.

The Fraud by Zadie Smith

I heard mixed things about this and a lot about how it was based on a real mistaken identity case but what this book is actually about is legacy, identity and what it means to be remembered. I'm not sure I loved it exactly but Smith remains, to me, an utterly fascinating writer.

Stray Dogs by Rawi Hage

I've struggled with Hage's longer works. While not all these stories worked for me they were clearly well written and there is one that will haunt me forever. Enjoyable.

Godshot by Chelsea Bieker

I realized sometime after I finished that this reminded me a lot of White Oleander in a weird way. A young girl growing up in a cult finds her way out basically. Very well written and surprisingly hopeful given the subject matter. I will be reading more Bieker.

[aristocraticelegance]

March reads. I'm surprised I even got through three this month. I also had my first DNF of the year, which I probably won't record any thoughts on, since I don't have anything intelligent to say about it.

The Closet, Danielle Bobker (Princeton University Press, 2020). I bought a bunch of books from the Princeton University press annual sale; this one turned out pretty good. It does suffer a bit from the problem of stitching together several loosely related research articles, but it was interesting as a history of 16th-17th century closets and their social role. I liked the sections on court favorites/court politics the most. The last chapter tries to link these early closets with the modern concept of coming out of the closet, which was a little half-baked even if it was heading in an interesting direction.

2. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John Le Carré (1963/2005). The problem with reading old famous books is that if they're good I start going around like omg have your heard of this?? It's good?? Anyways, newsflash, John Le Carré is a good writer. It's also interesting to see elements that I first encountered in later writers. I would be very surprised if William Gibson isn't indebted to Le Carré in some way. I'll probably hunt down more of his books once I figure out what to read next.

3. Hel's Eight, Stark Holborn (Titan Books, 2023)

I bought this when it came out, and honestly I was kind of relieved to realize I was only a year late in reading it. It's the sequel to Ten Low, which I loved. I probably should have re-read it because I only vaguely remembered how it ended, but Hel's Eight was still great. The two books are a mix of Space Western/Mad Max in space with supernatural horror, or something like that. If you liked Mad Max: Fury Road, you should read these.

Short Fiction

I finally finished New Edge Sword & Sorcery vol. 1, which had some great pieces in it, including "The Pillars of Silence" by Prashanath Srivasta. I mostly read short stories during work breaks, so it can take me a while to get through anything, but I really enjoyed this volume and Vol. 0. It's nice to see a magazine with so much art too.

I also finished issue 143 of Apex Magazine. One of the reasons I don't read a ton of short fic is that my preferred sub genres are pretty underrepresented in contemporary SFF. Apex publishes some good stuff, but I've had a hard time with the last few issues, mostly because of the focus on contemporary-set stories. I did like "Chi Tam is Tired of Being Dead" by Natasha King and the reprints by Eden Royce and Christopher Caldwell.

Finally, I really liked "The Angel Azrael and the Dead Man's Hand" (Peter Darbyshire) in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #339. A Fantasy Western that gestures towards some complex setting/backstory.

[dry-valleys]

"Richard returned with joy and relief to the hills and moorlands of his northern home. Its peace and beauty never seemed more soothing than on his arrival after a long and weary journey”.

Lady Newton.

Lyme is the second highest National Trust garden after Castle Drogo, Devon, and its height, exposure, heavy rainfall and acidic soil make it very much unlike the soft south-eastern lowlands; as Joseph Addison, head gardener from 1907-22, remarked: “We came in March, up from Suffolk*, and it was three months later than Suffolk* and a very wet year, all slugs and rain”.

Although there was actually a heatwave when I went there in August 2022, the cool, damp weather that is at Lyme almost all the rest of the time had left its mark.

*Suffolk is a fine county; please see here. It is, as you can see, nothing whatsoever like Lyme, as Addison found out.

Lyme was held by the warrior aristocrats of the Danyers, then the Legh, family from 1346; please see here for my full history of the place. Here I am mainly focusing on the garden and moors.

The park was carved of the vast Forest of Lyme (from which Newcastle nder Lyme, which is very near where I live, Audlem, in the Cheshire/Shropshire/Wales borderlands, and Ashton under Lyne near what is now Manchester.  Although little is left of the forest, much of Lyme is wooded; please see here and here for more on that.

The house was built around 1570, commissioned by Sir Peter Legh IX (there were so many Peters, Thomases and Richards that they all bore numbers as well as names) and the park, with its striking avenue of lime trees, was ordered by Richard Legh I of Lyme around 1670.

In the early 18th century, the house got a makeover inside and out as famed Venetian architecht Giacomo Leoni (1686-1746) worked here; the house is largely his embellishment of what was built in 1570.

The moors swept down to (2) the garden, largely the work of Lewis Wyatt  (1777-1853). He worked for Thomas Legh II (1792-1857) and then Alfred Darbyshire came here in 1863 to work for William John, 1st Baron Newton (1828-98).

Wyatt and Darbyshire added to what was already here, such as (3) the avenue of lime trees already mentioned, (4) the house, (5) library, (6) chapel.

When the Protestant Reformation came to England in 1536, the Leghs, showing their Lancashire roots, stayed Catholic; Richard Legh I (1634-87) ordered a Protestant chapel built but at the time it was for show, and the family worshipped inthe old ways in secret; (7) is a sign of this.

Printed in 1487 by William Caxton, the Sarum Missal (at Lyme since 1503) is a Catholic prayer book which is now an artefact but wa svery much in day to day use until, at some point, the show became reality and the Leghs really did become Protestants.

The chapel was used throughout this time, but around 1900 the family moved its worship to St Mary, in the nearby town of Disley, which I’ve never been to but hope to see soon) and, though restored in 1950, the chapel is not as lush as it would have been in Lewis Wyatt’s day.

The book was lost until Peter Legh XII (1669-1744; he also employed Leoni) dates found it and restored it, this time as an heirloom.

 We then move to (8) the ante room and (9) the dining room; Lewis Wyatt, a man of many talents, designed this as well as the garden.

Of the Grinling Gibbons carvings in the house, James Lees-Milne said “in the northern half of England there are no carvings, with the exception of those at Chatsworth by Gibbons’ pupil Samuel Watson, that can compare with those at Lyme in delicacy, finish and artistic refinement”.

After World War 1, in which son and heir Richard William Davenport (1888-1960) fought, as so many of his forefathers had done, it was no longer possible to have an aristocratic lifestyle; servants were unwilling to work here, rents from farmland were falling, and the city of Manchester overshadowed the old country life; Jack Leech, who had once worked on the estate, simply said “When we came back and saw all that at Lyme, we thought what’d we been fighting for?” (Probably not the same war aims as Richard, anyway!)

Richard this gave Lyme to the National Trust in 1946. He lived for another fourteen years, and must have been pleased to see what good care has always been taken by the National Trust, which only grew stronger in later years. As a sign of the times, the Sarum Missal, which had been in Manchester’s John Rylands Library since 1946 (a sumptous building; please see here) was brought back to Lyme in 1986.

I last came here in February 2018, during the cold spell of Beast from the East (I had planned to come back in March 2020, but the lockdown due to COVID 19 kept me away), so I knew better than to walk on such exposed moors (Kelly’s Directory of Cheshire, 1896, called it “bleak, moorish and unfruitful”) in a heatwave, but I had taken (1) in August 2016 (all others from August 2022) so can share all the seasons and colours of Lyme.

[parkinsonismblr-blog]

TIM murderers

“Woman” killed neighbor before shooting self

John “Johnny” Jacobson Jr/Skylar Deleon – Armed burglary and murder

Craig Hudson – Tortured/killed wife, fights to wear wig in prison

William Gray – Killed two women

Derek Sinden, who identifies as a woman, assaulted/killed elderly woman after invading her home                                

Mark van N. – Dentist who killed his wife and mutilated the teeth of some 100 patients

Matthew “Maddie” Smith, murder

Dr. Richard Sharpe – Killed wife during divorce

Michael Adams – Shot and killed girlfriend

Raven Navajo – Transsexual who murdered a woman

Douglas/Donna Perry – Blames shooting dead 3 prostituted women on former male identity

Jeanne Marie Druley – Transsexual who shot and killed a woman he “loved”

Geoffrey Websdale – Shot 4 people, killing 2

Matthew “Maxine” Richardson – Murdered prostituted woman

Douglas Wakefield/Tai Pilley – Murdered uncle, killed male inmate, took guard hostage, & had sexual relations with women in prison after transfer          

Paul Charles Denyer – Transsexual serial killer, who “hated women in general”

Robert/Michelle Kosilek – Murdered wife, nearly decapitating her head with piano wire

Paul Luckman – Kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered boys

Maddison Hall – Shot and killed a hitchhiker, sexually predated on women and raped his cellmate in women’s prison after transfer

Lyralisa Stevens – Shot and killed a woman

Robert/Rebecca Hilton – Murder

Michelle-Lael Norsworthy – Murder

Rodney/Shiloh Quine – Kidnapping, robbery and murder    

Wolfgang “Beate” Schmidt – Serial killer who murdered five women and one of their babies, raped bodies, and attempted attack on a 12 year old girl

Yesenia Patino – Transsexual who brutally murdered boyfriend’s wife

Hadden Clark – Serial killer, drank women/girl’s blood to “become a woman              

Transgender woman and male lover torture woman to death in sadistic fetish

LGBT Media Ignores Case of Transgender Who Killed Lesbian Couple and Son

Transsexual kills neighbor over noise and being uncomfortable with being transsexual

Nastasia Laura Bilyk is a Man serving a life sentence for murdering a Woman in 1987. He decided he was a Woman in 2008, and now wants to be transferred to a Women’s prison in Canada.

Sex-change suit by California inmate Philip Rosati (convicted of murder) OKd by court

The murder of Rita Powers and a male transgenderist’s narcissistic rage

Edmonds Tennent Brown IV, a man who identifies as a woman named Katheryn Brown, is seeking state-funded hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery (“SRS”) while serving a life sentence without parole in a South Carolina prison for the rape and murder of Mary Lynn Witherspoon. Although Brown pled guilty, he now claims he did so “under duress during an emotionally difficult time…likened to PMS.

Luis Morales/Synthia China-Blast – rape and murder of a teen girl:

Steve “Nikkas” Alamillo – murder

Thomas “Lisa” Strawn – Murder [same article as above, also mentioned]

Peter Laing/Paris Green – beat, tortured and murdered a man, moved to another women’s prison after having sexual relations with female inmates

  Mark Brooks/Jessica Brooks – murder

Melissa Young – Murders neighbor over rejecting Christmas gift

David Wesley Birrell/Bella-Christina Birrell,

Yolanda Gonzalez – Murder

Philip Taplin – Murder

Donald Geoffrey McPherson/Kimmie McPherson – Murder

Glen Robert Askeborn/Samantha Glenner – Child abuse, battery and murder

Trans-Identified Man Poses as Woman to Lure, Blackmail, & Kill Man: Alhan Khan

Cross-Dressing Soldier Murders Wife to Stop Her from Exposing His Secret: Logan Kyle

Transitioning Male Trans Teen Viciously Stabs Parents to Death on Halloween: Andrew “Andrea” Balcer

Killer Transgender Feels Oppressed by the Prison System: Jade September

Male Transgender Stalks, Stabs Driver to Death in Road Rage Incident: Derya Yıldırım

Male Transgender Kills His Uncle to Fund ‘Gender’ Surgery: Vonlee Nicole Titlow

Transgender and Prominent Trans Rights Activist Slaughters Long-time Friend: Gigi Thomas

Michael Chidgey

Liam Suleman / Lucy Edwards

William Jaggs

2016 – Jenny Swift killed Eric Flanagan

2015 – Claire Darbyshire killed Brian Darbyshire (father)

2015 – Graham Cleary-Senior killed Frances Cleary-Senior (wife)

2013 – Alan Baker/Alex Stewart killed John Weir

2013 – Colin Coates tortured and killed Lynda Spence

2010 – Christopher Hunnisett* killed Peter Bick

2010 – Senthooran Kanagasingham killed David/Sonia Burgess

2010 – Paul Hayhurst killed Alexander Toner

2008 – Gavin Boyd killed Vikki McGrand (sister in law)

2006 – Steve Wright killed Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls

2004 – Daniel Eastwood* killed fellow prisoner Paul Algae

2002 – Ian/Lian Huntley* killed Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman

2001 – Christopher Hunnisett* killed Ronald Glazebrook

2001 – Samantha Read killed Simon Spicer (partner)

2001 – Malcolm French killed Christopher Loftus (wife’s new partner)

2000 – Karen Lawson* killed Michael Cutler (partner)

2000 – Robert/Emma Page* killed Clive White

1995 – William Wotherspoon acquitted of killing Francis McMillan

1987 – Lennie Smith* suspected of killing of 5 children, let off on technicality:

Smith was also charged with the murder of seven year old Mark Tildesley in 1987 but charges were subsequently dropped as the person who named him as the killer (Leslie Bailey) was himself convicted of the manslaughter of the child (having confessed to having been present) and this was insufficient evidence to secure a conviction without a confession from Smith.

Smith was part of a group of paedophile men including Sidney Cooke, Robert Oliver and Leslie Bailey who are believed to have tortured, raped and killed at least 5 young boys in the 1980s. Oliver was jailed for 15 years in for the manslaughter of 14-year old Jason Swift; Smith was also arrested for the killing but never charged.

[orbemnews]

Why this will be the hottest airplane seat in 2021 (CNN) — Premium economy. The two words might seem a weird combination in airline terms, since it’s a rare airline where economy seats feel premium these days. But these seats between coach and business class on international flights were heating up even before Covid-19, and as we all start to travel again in 2021, they’re set to be a must-fly for many passengers. Why? It’s a combination of factors. First, the economic crisis means that business class travelers will be “trading down” to premium economy — whether that’s people flying for work whose travel policies are being tightened or upmarket leisure travelers who are feeling the pinch on their wallets but don’t fancy feeling it at their knees or elbows. Second, frequent fliers will have miles to burn after a year of reduced traveling, and with those straitened travel policies that land business travelers in economy, we’ll likely see some of them upgrading themselves to the slightly better seats with their points. That’s alongside pent-up leisure travelers looking for a bit of a splurge, even in hard times. Third comes the fact that, after more than a year of Covid-19, we’re just not psychologically used to being cheek-by-jowl with other people anymore. It’s going to feel very strange to think about doing that on a plane, so the extra space in premium economy will be welcome. Emirates recently debuted its latest A380 with luxurious premium economy seats. Courtesy Emirates What is it? But what is premium economy? Fundamentally, it’s a bigger seat, says Ben Orson, a designer responsible for many of the most successful seats of the past decade, and now managing director of Orson Associates. “The most important part of what a premium economy seat offers the passenger is a significant upgrade in terms of comfort when compared to economy. Premium economy seating typically provides around 5 to 10 inches of additional leg room, a more generous recline with a leg rest and an enhanced entertainment experience with a much larger screen.” Seats are also around two to three inches wider, and there are usually one to two seats fewer in each row: eight in a Boeing 777 or Airbus A380, for example, compared with 10 seats in most economy classes. “This approach has paid off for airlines,” Orson says, “with both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic saying that, per square foot, premium economy is the most profitable part of the plane.” Premium economy often comes with upgraded meal service. Courtesy British Airways Premium economy is found, metaphorically and on the actual aircraft, between the increasingly spacious and luxurious business classes and the increasingly less spacious and less luxurious economy classes. Airbus calls this widening gap the “comfort canyon.” Matt Round, chief creative officer at design studio Tangerine, explains that for airlines, it helps to fill this gap and that along with that larger seat comes some additional perks. “Airlines tend to offer premium economy passengers access to more priority services such as free seat reservations, priority boarding and increased luggage allowance. The services that are offered vary according to the airline.” Who flies it? Passengers usually first approach premium economy from one of two directions: either upgrading from economy or downgrading from business. “Pre-Covid-19, premium economy performed well for leisure passengers who wanted a slight treat or for cost-conscious large and small businesses,” Round explains. “On some routes, there was a tendency for passengers traveling on business to fly premium economy during the day and return on a fully flat bed in business class on the night flights.” EVA Air’s premium economy cabins were among the world’s first. EVA Air But, where business class seats have become more spacious and economy class seats have shrunk both in legroom and elbow room, how have premium economy seats changed since their introduction nearly 30 years ago aboard Virgin Atlantic and EVA Air? “They haven’t, not really,” says Peter Tennent, director of design house Factorydesign. “When we designed the first British Airways’ World Traveller Plus seat in 2000, the basis for the seat customization was an aging business class platform. These conventional, yet larger recliner seats were beginning to be superseded by enhanced business class offers, so there was a fairly obvious option to downgrade them from business to a reduced offer to sit between business and economy.” Despite many advances in inflight entertainment and connectivity features such as on-demand inflight touchscreen entertainment, power sockets, WiFi internet and more, the basic seat hasn’t changed much, Tennent says. “There have been many new premium economy seats, some bespoke, others derivatives of existing platforms, but all still following the same principle.” What about the future? Premium economy, says Martin Darbyshire, chief executive officer of Tangerine, is “a life saver for me as a business traveler who runs a privately owned company, and therefore cannot justify flying business class whenever I want. “For a day flight, especially, premium economy is a comfortable way of flying with a reasonable quality of service. The smaller cabin is also a benefit, as it creates a more private space.” Premium economy is also very popular with senior citizens on vacation, particularly because they can usually book early for lower fares. More legroom is a key benefit of premium economy seats. Chris Rank/Delta Air Lines Business travelers, on the other hand, can find it expensive at the last minute, Darbyshire notes. That said, these passengers — especially if they’re also frequent fliers — are among the first to be upgraded into business class if the premium economy cabin is getting full. Overall, says Orson, “premium economy will continue to be attractive to the very tall, the elderly, and anybody else for whom economy class presents too much of a physical challenge.” But, looking forward, he muses, “could it be that the approach which launched premium economy in the first instance — a considered selection of those aspects of business class that really matter to passengers today, such as a more technologically informed approach to comfort, greater privacy, enhanced connectivity or a more distanced boarding experience — might be applied again to create a new way of traveling, perfectly tailored to the ever-evolving needs of our passengers of the future?” Whatever the future looks like, Tennent from Factorydesign notes, “Aviation is a battleground for differentiation. If one airline can offer — or claim to — something better, different or novel compared to their competitors, it provides a commercial advantage.” Top photo from Philippine Airlines. John Walton is an international transportation and aviation journalist based in France, specializing in airlines, commercial aircraft and the passenger experience. Source link Orbem News #Airplane #Hottest #Seat

[shoppingfordeals]

Please : A Novel (ExLib) by Peter Darbyshire $7.94

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=2&toolid=10039&campid=5337702801&item=143181584963&vectorid=229466 Please : A Novel (ExLib) by Peter Darbyshire Price: …

[ninja-muse]

Read in 2017 Masterpost

Italics = 7-8 out of 10; Bold = 9-10 out of 10; Struck = unreviewed

Fantasy

Magic for Nothing - Seanan McGuire A Conjuring of Light - V.E. Schwab The Forgotten Tale - J.M. Frey Borderline - Mishell Baker The Immortals - Jordanna Max Brodsky Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day - Seanan McGuire The Oversight - Charlie Fletcher Indexing: Reflections - Seanan McGuire The Hanging Tree - Ben Aaronovitch Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge - Paul Krueger Shadowed Souls - Jim Butcher and Kerrie L. Hughes, ed. Prudence - Gail Carriger Heroine Complex - Sarah Kuhn Winter of the Gods - Jordanna Max Brodsky The Bedlam Stacks - Natasha Pulley Dead Men’s Boots - Mike Carey The Masked City - Genevieve Cogman The Brightest Fell - Seanan McGuire An Unkindness of Magicians - Kat Howard An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors - Curtis Craddock The City of Brass - S.A. Chakraborty Magicians Impossible - Brad Abraham The Last Hero - Terry Pratchett A Green and Ancient Light - Frederic S. Durbin

Reread: Carpe Jugulum, The Fifth Elephant, The Last Continent, The Science of Discworld, The Truth, Thief of Time (all from the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett), Smoke and Mirrors, Smoke and Shadows (from the Smoke trilogy by Tanya Huff) Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Finished: a reread of Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire

In progress: Smoke and Ashes by Tanya Huff, An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett (all rereads)

DNF Finn Fancy Necromancy - Randy Henderson DNF Witches Be Crazy - Logan J. Hunder

Science Fiction

All Our Wrong Todays - Elan Mastai Take Us To Your Chief and Other Stories - Drew Hayden Taylor Abaddon’s Gate - James S.A. Corey The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. - Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland The Clockwork Dynasty - Daniel H. Wilson Just One Damned Thing After Another - Jodi Taylor Into the Drowning Deep - Mira Grant A Lot Like Christmas - Connie Willis Pride and Prometheus - John Kessel Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen - Lois McMaster Bujold

Reread: Miles in Love, Diplomatic Immunity, Cryoburn, Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance (all from the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold)

Finished: a reread of The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

In progress: Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey, A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

DNF Off Rock - Kieran Shea DNF Has the World Ended Yet? - Peter Darbyshire

Mystery

Ripped From the Pages - Kate Carlisle Siege Winter - Ariana Franklin Royal Flush - Rhys Bowen Break No Bones - Kathy Reichs Behind Chocolate Bars - Kathy Aarons Teetotalled - Maia Chance

Graphic Novels

The Unwritten, Vol. 6 - Mike Carey Sex Criminals, Vol. 1 - Matt Fraction Rivers of London, Vol. 2 - Ben Aaronovitch Saga, Vol. 7 - Brian K. Vaughan Sandman, Vol. 3 - Neil Gaiman Patsy Walker A.K.A. Hellcat!, Vol. 1 - Kate Leth The Hunt - Colin Lorimer Rivers of London, Vol. 3 - Ben Aaronovitch New Romancer, Vol. 1 - Peter Milligan

Young Adult

Strange the Dreamer - Laini Taylor Of Fire and Stars - Audrey Coulthurst Down Among the Sticks and Bones - Seanan McGuire The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue - Mackenzi Lee Radio Silence - Alice Oseman Not Your Sidekick - C.B. Lee That Inevitable Victorian Thing - E.K. Johnston Unearthed - Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner Noteworthy - Riley Redgate

Other Fiction

Bellweather Rhapsody - Kate Racculia Son of a Trickster - Eden Robinson The Last Neanderthal - Claire Cameron If We Were Villains - M.L. Rio A Hundred Thousand Worlds - Bob Proehl Moonglow - Michael Chabon The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry Voyager - Diana Gabaldon The Cottingley Secret - Hazel Gaynor Eagle and Empire - Alan Smale

Non-Fiction

Adventures in Unhistory - Avram Davidson Where Am I Now? - Mara Wilson Chronicle of the Narváez Expedition - Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca At Home - Bill Bryson The Silk Roads - Peter Frankopan The 37th Parallel - Ben Mezrich Between the Woods and the Water - Patrick Leigh Fermor A History of Ancient Egypt: Volume 2 - John Romer The Chemical Choir - P.G. Maxwell-Stuart From Here to Eternity - Caitlin Doughty

In progress: Bad Days in History by Michael Farquhar

[upwiththegood]

19th June. Mereworth Luncheon Club

The Group was invited to join the Mereworth Luncheon Club to hear some very good news. So a representative sample, Kathy, Peter and Reece forewent the Group meeting on the same date and time and joined up with this excellent throng, who collect and give financial assistance to needy support groups in their locality. After a brief introduction and a meeting of some old friends the matters of the day progressed at a pace An excellent luncheon including a nice mug of soup followed by what must be described as an assorted ploughman’s. Mike Darbyshire acted as the M.C. and introduced the assembled mass  and then Kathy  gave a short introduction to the group for those  who hadn’t been before and were oblivious to what the Maistone Stroke Group did or was and explained the  group’s goals and aspirations for the next few years or so, plus she also brought everyone up to speed and how the Group will be  celebrating it’s  20th anniversary  this coming September. A couple of suggestions from the Luncheon Club  were made as to how to promote this forthcoming celebration and another member  said that he would talk us through the process of becoming a registered charity if the Group thought fit. All in all a very good friendly meeting ended with the Luncheon club presenting Kathy with £190, for which we are most grateful. once again an excellent meeting.

Happy daze

[loanstars]

Chills & thrills with Wolsak & Wynn

There's no trick to winning these treats! Canadian library staff who vote during the month of October could win this sweet prize pack. Bonus: it’s guaranteed not to rot your teeth (if seen and not chewed).

Featuring:

Has the World Ended Yet? by Peter Darbyshire

Adjacentland by Rabindranath Maharaj

The Society of Experience by Matt Cahill

The Death Scene Artist by Andrew Wilmot

Contest open to Canadian library staff only. Must reside in Canada. Each entrant's vote (up to a maximum of 10) cast in the month of October 2018 will count as their entry ballots. Winner will be chosen from a draw during the first week of November. 

Ready to start? We’ve got the perfect place for you to request & vote this spooktacular season. 

[thehappyscavenger]

The world is a constant disaster, and the only way to escape it is through the dreams we sell each other.

Has the World Ended Yet?

[swipestream]

Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: Volume 2

I wrote a review of The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly two years ago. For various reasons, I did not read the online stories as they appeared since then. I waited for the next volume (#2) that covers 2011-2013.

The book has a nice cover by Robert Zoltan that is better than most of the photo-shopped covers for mass market paperbacks these days.

Trade paperback size that is 243 pages including eight poems and twelve stories. Cost was $12.99 from Amazon.

The introduction “Sword and Sorcery” is by the hominid known as Mark Finn. He is the editor for the magazine Skelos. The introduction reminded me of his introduction to the first issue of Skelos where he argued old versus new.

                “Sword and Sorcery isn’t just Karl Edward Wagner, and Robert E. Howard, and Michael Moorcock anymore. . . But times change. We’re a different society than the ones these luminaries railed against. And yet we’re kinda sorta the same too, aren’t we?”

Which is it? A commenter a few weeks back on my review of Legends II made a good point about fantasy writers should strive to write fantasy that reflects timeless truths. I would add sword and sorcery also delves into our primal fears.

Sword and sorcery fiction is a conservative and may I dare say it reactionary form of fiction. Robert E. Howard had no interest in the future. He saw only decadence, rot, and decay going forward. Recrudescence would happen with collapse and rebirth through violence.

Fiction that eschews the eternal in the human condition in exchange for the current cause du jour is going to date badly in short order. There is a reason that science fiction writers including Isaac Asimov and Alfred Bester despised sword and sorcery. The genre really should be little to no different from the 1930s. Any proclamations on the need to change or “evolve” should be viewed with suspicion as an attempt to converge the form.

R. Michael Burns returns with another Hokage the samurai story in “Demon-Fang.” Hokage obtains a cursed sword the hard way.

James Frederick William Rowe has an Irish based story, “The Worship of the Lord of the Estuary and the Wages of Heroism.” This was a good to great story with a monster fish terrorizing a sea-side community. A young would be hero takes on the monster. This story should have been included in one of the year’s best fantasy anthologies. I am curious why James Frederick William Rowe uses three first names. Rowe is a name in my lineage. It is of Norman origin (originally de Roux). We just might be kin-folk.

“Death at the Pass” by Michael R. Fletcher is a tale of necromancy and an army of the un-dead. Interesting to see the perspective of a reanimated corpse.

Peter Darbyshire’s “The Princess Trap” started out with:

“Saleema was an orphaned sheepherder until her seventeenth year, when a talking dragon landed in the mountain meadow one summer day and ate all her sheep.”

WRONG ANSWER! I skipped the story at this point.

Sean Patrick Kelley’s “Crown of Sorrows” is a hard-boiled sword and sorcery tale of a captured mercenary forced to recover a crown from a monarch.

“Rhindor’s Remission” by Russell Miller started out with:

“He was pissing hot gravel.”

I read the rest of the page, scanned through the rest of the story without reading in detail. I am not a fan of humorous fantasy (except for Jack Vance). This story revolves around conflict between two wizards.

“A Game of Chess” by David Pilling lost me with:

“People forget that England was a different country then. Decades of Arthur’s Peace, during which the land was steadily tamed and civilized, have stifled the memory of what a wild place it was in the old days.”

If you are talking King Arthur, it was Britain, not England. That is a peeve of mine. Arthur was a British Celt, England was founded by invading Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.

Ben Godby’s “Dusts of War” is an interesting sword and sorcery spy story that has a Cold War paranoia about it. Interesting story.

Rakhar the Half-Orc is the main character for David Charlton’s “Kingdom of Graves.” Rakhar the Half-Orc is also a grave-digger who can use his shovel as a weapon when need be. A sorcerous plague and then zombie apocalypse takes place and a show-down with the culprit. Good story though I associate the word “orc” with J. R. R. Tolkien who created the term. Goes to show to show how words seep into popular culture.

Orcs show up again in “Lord of the Tattered Banner” by Kristopher Reisz. This time they are slaves to human working in mines, fighting in the arena, and proverbial cannon fodder in wars. A prophecy is spread of a champion who will free the orcs.

“Nicor” by Matthew Quinn has a shipload of Danish Vikings fighting a Nicor. Think of the fish-man that terrorized the ship on Jonny Quest.

J. S. Bangs’ “The Lion and the Thorn Tree” has an African setting and rifles. A recent widow takes on a ghost lion terrorizing the neighborhood. My big gripe is it is written in first person. I just really dislike first person narratives anymore.

There is an interior illustration for each story. I have to say I really did not like most of the black and white interior illos. I am persnickety about interior art.

So, there you have it. I thought this volume was a little better than volume one. There were a couple of stories I did not like but I never expect to like every story in an anthology.

Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: Volume 2 published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[jcbennett]

Canlit roadkill (almost)

Novelist Peter Darbyshire (aka Peter Roman, these days) and I go a long way back. So far back, that I was reminiscing about our old days not long ago during an interview with John Degen on his BookRoom podcast. 

Today I received the following email from Darbyshire, er, Roman:

"I was driving along the wilds of Highway 3 between Osoyoos and Langley listening to your Book Room interview. It had just reached the part about your days at Western when I came around a corner doing 80 or so and saw a deer running down the other side of the road. Knowing this was a CanLit moment if I'd ever seen one, I slammed on the brakes just as the deer decided to run directly in front of me. I face planted against the inside of the windshield, everything in the back seat moved to the front seat, and you continued on about Atwood or some such thing. The mountains looked on, unmoved as always."

Now, if this was really Canlit, and not real life, he would have died. Slowly. The last words he would have heard...uttered by Degen, that sage of all ages. The mountains would have been unmoved, indeed. But the deer, the deer's role, this is less certain. I believe the deer is the open, creative element in this that can be played with. The flexibility Canlit offers, it's enough to make one want to write something new, yet something that's been done many times before....

[peterdarbyshire-blog]

The book is dead! Long live the book!

[loanstars]

Presenting the top 10 titles for October 2017 as voted by library staff across Canada:

1. The Shoe on the Roof, Will Ferguson 2. Sleeping in the Ground, Peter Robinson 3. In the Midst of Winter, Isabel Allende 4. Rose & Poe, Jack Todd 5. Uncommon Type, Tom Hanks 6. The Rules of Magic, Alice Hoffman 7. Seven Days of Us, Francesca Hornak 8. Manhattan Beach, Jennifer Egan 9. The Power, Naomi Alderman 10. Has the World Ended Yet?, Peter Darbyshire Head over to loanstars.ca to download a full pdf of the list! November voting (and beyond!) is happening right now, so library staff log into your CataList accounts and request some new great reads!