“Constantinople was an impregnable city …”
— Robert B. Kebric,
Roman People (4th edition), epilogue.
Posts filed in Literature
I think the etymology of this word has to to with putting letters (liter) together. In any case, it’s fictional prose or poetry (preferably the former, but I’m an open soul), and I like it. After all, only morons think reading books is stupid.
When I first read this, I imagined for a moment that 1204 and 1453 had been nothing but bad dreams. Reality dawing on me felt like a fist in my guts
Interview with the Vampire
Man, I did not until a few seconds ago realise what an inane title Interview with the Vampire really is; it is scary to see just how much an article can matter…
Anyway, I had my sister over for dinner a couple of days ago, and we watched this thing, mainly because we both remembered the [...]
The Histories by Herodotus
[Approximately 435 BCE] 2003.
Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt (1954).
Introduction and notes by John Marincola (1996, 2003).
600 pages of main text.
166 pages of paratext.
The Gilded Chain by Dave Duncan
1998.
396 pages.
Eos Fantasy
Paperback.
First published novel in the Tales of the King’s Blades series.
In the kingdom of Chivial, it is the task of the Loyal and Ancient Order of the King’s Blades to supply the king and his chosen servants with bodyguards. Boys, unwanted troublemakers for the most part, are taken in around the age of [...]
For better or worse, you just don’t get life stories like this anymore (Or, the only thing missing is piracy)
“Raised in an Ibo village (in modern Nigeria), Olaudah Equiano (ca 1745-1797) was kidnapped by African raiders and slod into slavery. He survived the horrors of the Middle Passage to the New World, where an English naval officer bought him ito serve as a cabin boy and renamed him Gustavus Vassa, after a sixteenth-century Swedish [...]
The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson
1954.
274 pages.
Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks.
Paperback.
Skafloc, kidnapped when he was a child and raised by the elves, received the sword Thyrfing as a naming day present from the Aesir. This was considered a perverse gift by most, as the sword has been broken by Thor to prevent it from being used to cut the roots of Yggdrasil [...]
Conan the Destroyer
When I was reviewing Conan the Barbarian, I read a few pages of the discussions on the IMDb boards (for once they weren’t just filled with flame wars). From these I gathered that the orthodoxy in Conan fandom is to regard Conan the Destroyer as the clearly inferior movie. Consequently I started watching it with [...]
Conan the Barbarian
He also strangles a chicken (well, not strangle, really) pucnhes a camel, punches a horse, clobbers the same camel again, and for a second there it looked like he was going to do something to the elephant too. Conan HATES animals.
— MegamanIXI, on the IMDb boards.
In Conan the Barbarian, an adaptation of Robert E. [...]
An English villager’s complaint
Ye friends to truth, ye statesman who survey
The rich man’s joys increase, the poor’s decay,
‘T is yours to judge how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and an happy land.
Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore,
And shouting Folly hails them from her shore;
Hoards e’en beyond the miser’s wish abound,
And rich men flock from [...]
The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth
1952.
186 pages.
Gollancz SF Masterworks paperback (2003).
In the 22nd century the people’s representatives in the American legislature have been replaced by those of the corporations, who in their turn are the clients of a few big, competing advertisement companies whose only concern is Sales. The citizens are no longer that; they are exclusively consumers, conditioned to [...]
Neuropath by Scott Bakker
Neuropath
by Scott Bakker
2008.
306 pages (with afterword).
Orion TPB.
“Only a small fraction of your brain is involved in conscious experience, which is why so much of what we do is unconscious. The bulk of your brain’s processing falls outside what you can experience; it simply doesn’t exist for your consciousness, not even as an absence. That’s why [...]
A TV Dante
My sister is one of the most important students at NTNU’s Department of Nordistics (or whatever) and Literature, primarily through her role as founder of the departemental body responsible for arranging events related to the relevant field of study (primarily Nordic linguistics and literature, as well as literature in general). Yesterday, she had arrange a [...]
The Last Colony by John Scalzi
The Last Colony by John Scalzi.
Tor Science Fiction, 2007.
320 pages.
“Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.”
— Commissioner Pravin Lal of the Peacekeepers,
Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri.
Not again!
Shit.
Here I turn my head for a second, and when I turn back towards the ‘net again, two months have passed. If I’d had a dollar for every time this has happened (or, perhaps more precise, for every time I’ve done this) in the last three years, I’d probably have… enough for a soda, anyway.
So, [...]
Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
1926.
273 pages.
Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks.
Foreword by Neil Gaiman.
Where the rivers Dapple and Dawl converge is situated the small country port of Lud-in-the-Mist, capital of the free state of Dorimare. From here, the burghers send their trading ships out into the world, bringing back wealth to the upper strata of Dorimarite society. But Lud and Dorimare has [...]
Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie
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 [...]
The Well of the Unicorn by Fletcher Pratt
1948.
338 pages.
Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks.
When young Airar Alvarson is evicted from his family farm by a henchman of the occupant Vulkings, he does not require much prodding to join the Dalecarl resistance, who are (or would be) fighting against the Vulkings’ rule over their homelands of Dalarna. A seemingly chance meeting with the old enchanter and [...]
Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie
2006
527 pages.
(This review is based on a comment I wrote on the review of The Blade Itself. It contains NO SPOILERS! The “more” thing is only there to soothe any spoilerphobics who might happen to read this.)
Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber
(If this isn’t my best review, please bear over with me; it’s been over two months since I read this book.)
2001 (1970, 1962, 1970).
165 pages.
“Induction” (2 pages)
“The Snow Women” (74 pages)
“The Unholy Grail” (27 pages)
“Ill Met in Lankhmar” (62 pages)
Swords and Deviltry is the first collection of short stories in the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks series’ [...]
Status report, Western Europe ca 700CE
“Culturally Latin Christendom, like a ruined family that could no longer maintain its old dwelling, came to live in a few rooms in the cellar.”
— F.B. Artz,
as quoted in Torbjørn L. Knutsen’s A History of International Relations Theory, p. 22.
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