Yes, I know. Apart from a fleeting visit with Daleks (Daleks and Jack! On New Year's Day!), I haven't posted anything in about nineteen years. So I thought I'd talk about books.
I usually read non-fic, so I don't post about reading much. I've read a lot of palaeontology and history this year, but I also got back into fiction a bit. Susanna Clarke, who wrote Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, put out a new book, called Piranesi, which is about a bloke in a cave. Sort of. You'll just have to read it.
Then I read a book called Across The Bright Sea, by Lauren Volk, which is supposedly a children's book, but yeah. Whatever. It's about a little girl who was a foundling, raised by an outsider on a tiny island, and it's fab. Shades of the equally wonderful Rooftoppers, by Katherine Rundell, which is also a book about a young girl who was a foundling raised by an oddball. And is also wonderful. Shortish reads, since they're (supposedly) for kids, and both great. Rooftoppers came out years ago, and how it hasn't been adapted for the screen yet, I have no idea.
And then I read A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik. She wrote the Temeraire series, about dragons fighting the Napoleonic Wars, which gave the world Izkierka the pirate dragon, and her slightly unwilling human, John Granby (and yes, Temeraire too, but he's less interesting). Now she's writing a new series, set in a psychopathic school for wizards. If it doesn't eat you first, you graduate. Very promising first installment.
After that was A Declaration On The Rights Of Magicians, by HG Parry, which is a heavily researched alternate history, in which Pitt and Wilberforce fight demons. Blinking giant doorstop of a book, but fun, and full of real history, as well as monsters and stuff. There's a sequel due out soon. HG Parry is quite new, and has only written one other book so far, which I've bought but not yet read. It's called The Unlikely Escape Of Uriah Heep, and sounds buckets of fun:
For his entire life, Charley Sutherland has concealed a magical ability he can't quite control: he can bring characters from books into the real world. His older brother, Rob - a young lawyer with an utterly normal life - hopes that this strange family secret will disappear with disuse, and he will be discharged from his duty of protecting Charley and the real world from each other.
But then, literary characters start causing trouble in their city, making threats about destroying the world, and for once, it isn't Charley's doing. There's someone else out there who shares his powers and it's up to Charley and a reluctant Rob to stop them - before anyone gets to The End.
Back to non-fic at the moment though - Wonderful Life, by Stephen Jay Gould, on the Burgess Shale, and a book called Survivors, by Richard Fortey, which is about natural history. Fortey's fab. A great writer, and also one of the world's leading experts on trilobites, so you can immediately see that he's a good bloke. Uriah Heep will probably come next.
So there you have it. I also watched the Robert Downey Jr film Dolittle, which is very, very silly, and a lot of fun. I don't think I've watched anything else in aeons though.
If you're feeling friendly, say hello to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seal_girl, by the way. She's trying this place out for size. Has been known to write wonderfully arcane crossovers (Ironside meets the Doctor!), so should fit in perfectly with some of you lot...
I usually read non-fic, so I don't post about reading much. I've read a lot of palaeontology and history this year, but I also got back into fiction a bit. Susanna Clarke, who wrote Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, put out a new book, called Piranesi, which is about a bloke in a cave. Sort of. You'll just have to read it.
Then I read a book called Across The Bright Sea, by Lauren Volk, which is supposedly a children's book, but yeah. Whatever. It's about a little girl who was a foundling, raised by an outsider on a tiny island, and it's fab. Shades of the equally wonderful Rooftoppers, by Katherine Rundell, which is also a book about a young girl who was a foundling raised by an oddball. And is also wonderful. Shortish reads, since they're (supposedly) for kids, and both great. Rooftoppers came out years ago, and how it hasn't been adapted for the screen yet, I have no idea.
And then I read A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik. She wrote the Temeraire series, about dragons fighting the Napoleonic Wars, which gave the world Izkierka the pirate dragon, and her slightly unwilling human, John Granby (and yes, Temeraire too, but he's less interesting). Now she's writing a new series, set in a psychopathic school for wizards. If it doesn't eat you first, you graduate. Very promising first installment.
After that was A Declaration On The Rights Of Magicians, by HG Parry, which is a heavily researched alternate history, in which Pitt and Wilberforce fight demons. Blinking giant doorstop of a book, but fun, and full of real history, as well as monsters and stuff. There's a sequel due out soon. HG Parry is quite new, and has only written one other book so far, which I've bought but not yet read. It's called The Unlikely Escape Of Uriah Heep, and sounds buckets of fun:
For his entire life, Charley Sutherland has concealed a magical ability he can't quite control: he can bring characters from books into the real world. His older brother, Rob - a young lawyer with an utterly normal life - hopes that this strange family secret will disappear with disuse, and he will be discharged from his duty of protecting Charley and the real world from each other.
But then, literary characters start causing trouble in their city, making threats about destroying the world, and for once, it isn't Charley's doing. There's someone else out there who shares his powers and it's up to Charley and a reluctant Rob to stop them - before anyone gets to The End.
Back to non-fic at the moment though - Wonderful Life, by Stephen Jay Gould, on the Burgess Shale, and a book called Survivors, by Richard Fortey, which is about natural history. Fortey's fab. A great writer, and also one of the world's leading experts on trilobites, so you can immediately see that he's a good bloke. Uriah Heep will probably come next.
So there you have it. I also watched the Robert Downey Jr film Dolittle, which is very, very silly, and a lot of fun. I don't think I've watched anything else in aeons though.
If you're feeling friendly, say hello to
seal_girl, by the way. She's trying this place out for size. Has been known to write wonderfully arcane crossovers (Ironside meets the Doctor!), so should fit in perfectly with some of you lot...
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The kid's books sound charming. I think by law all fiction set in Paris must have characters leaping across rooftops (thank you, Les Vampires).
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Yes, some good reading. A few I think you'd enjoy, but nothing Shardlakey, I'm afraid. Have you read "Jack Absolute" by CC Humphreys, btw? (The blurb calls it "the 007 of the 1770s"). I haven't read it, but several members of my family who have are also Shardlake fans.
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I've not read Jack Absolute, I've not read anything, arf. It sounds good fun, much needed after reading Shardlake!
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(And I think I recognise
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And the book characters one sounds a bit like you also might enjoy Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair, in case you haven't heard of it.
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This has been the first year in my life since I learned to read that I haven't really read anything that wasn't for work. I just can't concentrate.
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Thanks for the mention, I've acquired a few new friends to
try and convert to Ironsidechat to.I did write 80% of a Life on Mars cross-over with Ironside a few years ago, but I gave up as I thought only I would know both fandoms. I might have been wrong!!
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