#oh yeah this book is going to be devastating for my cavalier approach to world-building in general | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

e-louise-bates · 2 months ago

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I am about 18 pages into the introduction of Winters in the World: A Journey through the Anglo-Saxon Year by Eleanor Parker, and am happy to report that not only does she cite references properly (and explains in the preface that some of the translations are her own work and that's why they don't have citations), she has also managed, in 18 pages (of merely the introduction!) to make a better case against the myth of the Dark Ages, without trying to make that exact point but merely as the result of discussing things like calendars and such, than the authors of The Bright Ages did in the entire 3/4 of the book that I read before I finally decided I had better things to do with my life and threw it aside.

#eleanor parker #winters in the world #also somehow I had managed to miss the fact that malcolm guite endorses this book #and if I trust any person in this world for book recommendations it's malcolm guite #so yes I think this is going to be a much better reading experience than the last #I am also now thinking of various methods of tracking time and seasons as a crucial part of world-building in fantasy stories #what you can gauge about a culture and society based on whether they have two seasons or six #and the names of their months and what said months are based around #oh yeah this book is going to be devastating for my cavalier approach to world-building in general

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