2008.
536 pages (Gollancz Fantasy trade paperback).
“Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.”
— Paul Gaugin.
This being the opening quote of Last Argument of Kings, the concluding volume in Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law series, one can perhaps perceive that this is a bleak affair. As I remarked in my reviews of the first [...]
Posts filed in Art
A subjective thing, i.e. something each and every person experiences in a different way, and thus it is impossible to define objectively. For me, however, it is something that offers an interesting perspective on life, be it a new one, an old but soothing one, one that challenges, one that inspires, or just about anything. If it is artificial (i.e. man made), and makes you feel something, then it’s art. Simple as that. At least in my book. Admittedly, this definition might be so broad as to lose all content and meaning, but who cares, eh?
Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie
Amadeus
Had quite the movie-athon yesterday. Here’s part two, Amadeus, with three and four coming as soon as I can find the time to read them.
Amadeus is often portrayed as the lifestory of one of if not the best musical composer in the history of mankind. (Disagree? Go listen to his Requiem while you wait for [...]
Lord of War
It’s been nearly two weeks since I watched Lord of War, so this’ll be a brief review, but better late than never, eh?
First off, what struck me during this second watching of Lord of War was how similar, in many ways, it was to Charlie Wilson’s War. They both dealt with serious subjects, and they [...]
Inspiration strikes from the weirdest skies…
So, we’re doing syntax in the English linguistics course I’m taking, and in today’s lecture, we went through the various ways of determining whether or not a string of words is a phrase or not — a mildly put important part of the whole syntax bit. One of the examples the lecturer used was the [...]
Angel: After the Fall, issues 3-5
I’ve been doing a lot of nothing lately. In fact, I’ve been doing so much nothing that I’ven’t even read the last three (or four, now, I guess) issues of After the Fall. Luckily, I was able to rectify this last night, and man, am I glad I did.
As frustrating as it is to read [...]
The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe
2004.
920 pages, Gollancz trade paperback.
An American kid is out walking in the forest surrounding his and his brother’s cabin when he spots a castle in the sky, and follows it. During his pursuit he looses track of where he is, and when night falls he decides to sleep out in the forest. When he wakes [...]
Hässelby by Johan Harstad
2007.
444 pages, Gyldendal hardcover.
This is a tale about Albert Åberg — the main character of a series of childrens’ books written by Gunilla Bergström in the early 1970s. What happened to him after his childhood in the quiet Stockholm suburb of Hässelby? How did he grow from a lively, enthusiastic boy to a disillusioned, bored [...]
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
1968.
168 pages, including an afterword by Jon Bing, translator and professor of information law.
In the not too distant future humans have made Earth almost inhabitable by nuclear war. Colonies have been established on Mars and elsewhere, and most of mankind has moved there. Many still remain, though. Some because they don’t want to go, some [...]
Wastin’ money
Be that as it may, seeing as I don’t think I’ll fail any of my exams, I decided to take a quick trip downtown, to visit my favourite purveyors of fine leisure activities.
The first of these was Avalon, also known as Gotham. I was primarily looking for John Scalzi’s Ghost Brigades, but it as turned [...]
Rip it apart and start again
One of the many reasons to look forward to Ripper.
As for Brian K. Vaughn’s (first, but hopefully not last) run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Season 8″ comics, the best compliment I can give is that I hardly noticed — if indeed I did notice at all, which is doubtful — that this wasn’t written [...]
The mission
“The Poet does not flee from reality; she expands it in her flight.”
— Olaf Bull,
(my translation).
How to interpret a peculiar request
“‘Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed …’
(from Shakespeare’s will)
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
where we would dive for pearls. My lover’s words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his [...]
2007-11-28 — Quote of the Day
“In the second century C.E., Loukianos of Samosato wrote, ‘Everyone’s writing history now, and I don’t want to be left out of the furore.’ Loukianos, who was also known as Lucian the Scoffer, then produced a fantasy story called True History.”
— John M. Ford,
in the “Historical Note” to The Dragon Waiting.
Slaughterhouse-5, by Kurt Vonnegut
Slaugtherhouse-5, or the Children’s Crusade. A Duty-Dance with Death.
By Kurt Vonnegut.
156 pages, Torstein Bugge Høverstad’s Norwegian translation from 1970.
First published in English in 1969.
How to describe Slaughterhouse-5? Some other random site that had a review of it simply raved on about it being the brilliant ramblings of a madman on LSD, but I feel that [...]
München
München has also been neglected for a while.
It portrays both the murder of half a dozen Israeli athletes in München during the 1972 Olympics, and Mossad’s retribution afterwards. The emphasis is on the latter, and follows a team of agents who are given a list of 12 names, of prominent Fatah members they are to [...]
2007-11-13 — Quote of the Day
“It was in midsummer, when the alchemy of nature transmutes the sylvan landscape to one vivid and almost homogenous mass of green; when the senses are well-nigh intoxicated with the surging seas of moist verdure and the subtly indefinable odors of the soil and the vegetation. In such surroundings the mind loses its perspective; time [...]
Today’s Youth…
Yesterday evening, i.e. Friday November 9, some friends and I (as well as a total stranger) spent about an hour pelting Trondheim’s statue of the Norwegian national hero Tordenskjold (just about the only militarily inclined of the lot) with snowballs.
None of us were drunk, and one of us is even a rather conservative Christian (although [...]
Love In Rainbows
It’s been over four years. There have been times when I’ve almost given up hope. But on Monday, all my prayers (well, at least some of them) were answered.
Too bad I won’t get my hands on the physical record before some time late in December, but at least the digital version’ll be avaliable in five [...]
Ullr, the onion of war!
From Wikipedia’s kenning article:
Bárum Ullr, of alla
ímunlauks, á hauka
fjöllum Fyrisvalla
fræ Hákonar ævi;
nú hefr fólkstríðir Fróða
fáglýjaðra þýja
meldr í móður holdi
mellu dolgs of folginn
Simply based on meaning, i.e. without kennings, the passage runs: “Accursed King Harald! We carried gold in our arms during all of Hakon’s life; now the enemy of the people has hidden gold in [...]
Gudenes Fall
Gudenes Fall, by Cornelius Jakhelln.
2007, 428 pages.
Now, this might be a little weird. Gudenes Fall (The Fall of the Gods) is a book that most likely never will be translated into English, and yet, I choose to review it in English. But hey, my English is still worse than my Norwegian.
In the year 1000 AD, [...]
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