The Elysian Fields

"You don't talk aelfen royalty and hobgoblin kingpin tangled together without attracting some untoward attentions from every Tam, Dick, and Houri from Brú na Bóinne to Hy-Brasil." And yet, that's exactly the kind of tale a certain hard-boiled PI is going to tell you all about in The Hollow Man, Everett A. Warren's contribution to the anthology.

~ ~ ~

Which anthology? This fantasy noir anthology by Solarwyrm Press!

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If you head on over to Lulu, where I've published Cautionary Fables: Warts & All, you can get a code on their home page that is good for 18% your entire order.

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The offer's good until Friday, July 13, 2012... so make sure you get your order in before the promotion ends!

yuki_onna's book, that is. If you haven't already ordered a copy, that situation can be rectified with a clicky.

If you want to find out what it's all about ~ and you're not at work or around small, impressionable children ~ you can watch the trailer for the book (and hear some beautiful music by s00j composed for the book):



There. Now go buy it! =)

It's been quite a while since I posted any reviews; last night I went through a bunch of tools and other pieces of company equipment and posted reviews of them at Amazon.com ~ although they may or may not be useful items for those of you who aren't contractors, I'll still post them here! =)

Of course, this the last review I did, that's been hanging around for a while waiting for another review to bump it out of the holding pen, is on a work of fiction, so the disclaimer above just applies to things you'll be seeing over the next few days...



The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

I liked this a lot. A very enjoyable read.

I'm thinking of how to write about the book without giving too much away...

It concerns - despite what the misleading title might state - several historians. Anthropologists and archaeologists also get in on the act.

It's about a girl who grows up over the course of the book, so it's a coming of age story.

It's about Vlad Dracul.

Yes, some of the thrills and twists and turns aren't all that much of a surprise, and much of my initial assessments of characters proved correct... except for those that weren't core members of the cast. The supporting folks seemed much less predictable in the long run, mostly because what you thought might happen should they become central to the story didn't.

Despite that knowing - or, rather, suspecting and then confirming - I still found myself wanting to read exactly how those suspicions unfolded.

Funny how when I was watching Alexander the other day, the time shifts were driving me nuts. Here, it didn't happen - and there weas jumping around - mostly between two times and places, sometimes more - until pretty much the end of the book. Might just be that such things are handled more gracefully in the written word then they are on screen.

As with Stoker's Dracula, this tale is told, in large part, through letters. Here, though, much of those letters are being told, from memory, by one character to another; beyond that, all these pieces are assembled and told by that other character to the reader. While I enjoyed this nested POV, I can see others being challenged or annoyed by it.

Yep. That's my boy.

Brings me a book to read to him, right? Lots of kids do that.

Anywho.

He brings me this.

Yep, that's m' boy!

I may or may not get the order correct on these.

Ahem.

Cleared stuff off top of dresser. This included a recorder, a chanter, a small Russian zither, two seashell framed mirrors made by Deb's grandfather, a television set, and a ton of other stuff. We boxed the arts & crafts stuff in the top drawer, and then discovered VHS tapes in the second drawer. To get at the dresser, I had to drag away two totes full of VHS tapes from the other 3 drawers, which I had thought left only the arts & crafts stuff. So now we had a drawer full of tapes and no free totes. Stripped the drawers out of the dresser and headed downstairs. Ate some lunch.

Used the wet/dry vac in its additional role of wolf spider & web remover to clean off the rack gear and two 2x12 cabs. Hauled them out of the garage and to the library. Vacuumed off as much as we could of the boxes of books and the garage window that has been completely inaccessible since the day we moved in. Took the vacuum downstairs, cleaned up the floor area and cleared a spot to drop the dresser - our "pallet" - and then brought the vac back upstairs to the garage. Brought the dresser and drawers downstairs, dropped it on its back and popped the drawers in. Drank some ice tea.

I pulled boxes out, sorted some books and things out, and Justin lugged them downstairs. Mr B watched Rachel. Or vice versa. Justin carried about twenty or so boxes of books down and stacked them on the dresser. We switched jobs at some time. He cleaned, I still sorted - pulling out my childrens book collection, mostly - and I carried about another twenty boxes down stairs. We're about halfway through bringing the books downstairs. We'll need the three pallets - as I eventually want to retire the dresser in that role - to handle the entire lot. We did clear out enough around the air hockey table to be able to get it out, but only Mr. B possessed the energy required, and, as he is about head-height with the table, isn't really able to carry it on his own.

Brought Rachel to her friend's house - she's camping out tonight, in a tent almost up against the house. In final cleanup - after boxing some toys that were brought out, and while carrying magazines to recycling, we had an altercation with a spider larger than Mr. B's foot. It backed off from chomping on his morsel-sized toes when I yelled, and again when I hollered for Justin. I was wearing socks, and was guessing he'd throw me if I tried to step on him. Justin took a few tries to get something clear - I had wanted him to see this monster. He did, and jumped and ran. Eventually I steadied him, and we almost had him. He went up the garage door, which was held up a bit so he could run outside. I tried to escort him out with a stick - leaning over the trash cans and some other stuff that kept me from him - and he reacted by grabbing the stick and thwacking me over head with it. Well, not quite. He did grab the stick. I tried to toss it out the door, but Justin jumped back and the door dropped. The spider ran for cover behind some stuff between the two doors. Justin fetched the spider eater, and I moved stuff away and started cleaning the area working my way towards him. He wasn't under the bag of salt, but behind the last thing - a plastic jug of ice melter. He fought valiantly against the suction, but, in the end, he lost.

While we were eating supper, Deb came back from her day in NYC watching the Yankees lose. After eating, I set up the rack gear. It still does its volume-by-automatic-control thing, which will keep me from using it in front of a crowd. A real shame, because when it stays at the intended volume, it sounds beautiful. I did notice I'm using the neck pickup a lot more than I used to, and the tube overdrive sound I'm using really only sounds good with the bridge pickup. I think if I replace the power amp - something that won't happen for a long time, if ever - the rest will work well enough to perform live. At that point I'll mess with tweaking another sound to use with the neck pickup.

After all that, while we're completely exhausted, we realize that all the stuff that had been on the dresser was on my bed. At least the television was an exception to that - we brought that down right away. Couldn't lift it now if someone was going to pay me. =)

Bed now. Cookout tomorrow.

The Merry Muses of Caledonia by Robert Burns

This particular book was part of my inheritance from my father. He liked things Scottish, and, I suspect, he liked things bawdy. That may come as a surprise to those who knew him all quiet and polite; it came as a surprise to Dan and I when we found the "novel" Deep Throat in the filing cabinet when we were sent to retrieve some paperwork.

In any case, I found this collection a bit disappointing. At the outset, one of the editors seemed to go on at length how certain words, such as See-You-Next-Tuesday, were replaced, in prior editions, with dashes, leaving all the good (or bad) bits up to your imagination. My impression was that this version was going to say the unsayable and print the unprintable - and maybe it was incorrect, I didn't re-read the forewards and introductions and scholarly notes to verify. I don't believe I'm wrong though, as the foreward itself had a selection of said unsayables printed quite clearly in uncensored black and white.

So imagine my surprise when I had to figure out what one word rhymed with "saunt", "complaint", "ayont", "upon't", "runt", "brunt", "covenant", and "affront" - and the only clue were all these long dashes that disrupted the text.

Anyway, and now for something completely different:

A newly qualified doctor arrives for his first day at a hospital, deep in the Welsh valleys. He is met by one of the sisters, who has been given the task of showing him around the hospital and introducing him to the staff and patients.

It is a large hospital and it takes the whole day to get round. By late afternoon they are working their way through the psychiatric block and as the time approaches for the evening meal they arrive at the last ward. They follow the dinner trolley into the ward and wait while one of the nurses lifts the lid on the food tray. To the doctor's surprise there is but a single haggis on the tray to feed a whole ward.

One of the patients moves towards the trolley in a purposeful manner addressing the haggis,

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm.

Before he can reach the haggis another patient sprints forward, grabs the simple repast and dashes up the ward. He proudly holds the haggis aloft and cries out in a commanding voice,

Some hae meat and cannae eat.
Some cannae eat that want it:
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

At this, a kilted dervish leaps from his bed, whips a skien dubh out of his sock and lunges at the haggis carrier. With a deft movement the haggis bearer fend off the flashing blade with the haggis. Although this prevents any injury it does result in the top of the haggis being hacked off. A small mouse obviously waiting upon this event dashes out from under a bed, grabs the loose piece of haggis and scampers up the ward, running the gauntlet of slashing claymores and hurled dirks from various patients. At the end of the ward stands a bent and wizened old man with a wild fire in his eyes. He screams at the mouse,

Wee sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an chase thee,
Wi murdering pattle!

And then dives upon the poor little mouse. With a left dummy and a right feint, the mouse dodges between the old man's legs, through a hole in the skirting board and to safety with his prize. The doctor turns to the sister and asks, "Why is this psychiatric ward so full of Scotsmen?"

"Oh no, doctor, these are not Scotsmen, they are genuine valley dwellers born and bred", she replies, "and, anywa, this is not a psychiatric ward, it is the serious Burns unit."

(This version found on Electric Scotland - it's closest to they way I first heard it...)

... if our household now owns a copy of the Potterdammerung, I have nothing to do with it.

I don't even know if Justin is aware it's out today, although I expect he does. One way or another, he's in Cow Hampshire and I'm not, so there you have it.

Besides, I still have a number of books in the To Be Read pile, and, although I might stuff it into the middle, it probably wouldn't even make it into the top 10. And I am reading s l o w these days.

The current in-progress book sat there for about 2 months now with only the prelude completed...

My reading time has been filled with other things. Like my own personal line of yachts and a few others that I don't own. Yet.

By the way, for reference, should anyone want to contribute a yacht or two, I was looking at the s87, Predator 108, Open 90, and Atlantica 78. Nice little boats.

Okay, so that was only one day that I spent reading about cheap tiny boats that only cost a few million dollars... *most* of you are aware of what I've been spending most of my reading time on, although at this time that's a Top Sekrit topic... (at least for a certain restricted audience =)

The Forgetting Room: A Fiction by Nick Bantock

Whatever you may think of the story lines in Nick Bantock's works, it is the art and the way it is implemented that draw you into the story and impress it upon you after only a single reading.

It's probably been about six months since I read this, and when I close my eyes, I can still see the scenes in this book, the images haunting me, as if I had been in that village square or investigated the contents of that house I inherited, or stood upon that very bridge.

Novels read after this work fade, so that I am not confident of writing even one of my skewed and skewered alleged reviews without having the book in hand to make sure I'm not making it up, or, even, remembering it enough to do it justice. And these novels are not cheesy things easily forgotten, they're ones I really enjoyed, and will heap with lavish praise when I make the time to just sit down and write about them. And yes, I have a number that I read prior to this still awaiting review... I'm a veritable speedboat of reviewing, if someone could just tow me back into the harbor...

As for the story itself - which is really hard to separate from the images and the way it is told - it has wormed its way past the other Bantock books I've read and become my favorite. Although there are a few other authors doing similar things, the only thing I already know of that might be comparable would be a Neil Gaiman / Dave McKean collaboration. As those two guys, as far as words and images go, represent pinnacles of the ideal for me, that should be taken as rather high praise of Mr. Bantock, who somehow manages to roll up a whole bunch of talent into a single byline.