city of brass

About a week and a half ago, I took an S. A. Chakraborty book out of the library, it ended up being book 2 of the Daevabad Trilogy, The Kingdom of Copper. I shouldn't take out books when I'm in a hurry I guess. So I returned it and took out this book, book 1: The City of Brass. I'll be going back to get book 2 again.

Once I started reading, the story and especially the characters, seemed familiar, but I haven't been diligent in keeping up this blog so I could only find one of  Chakraborty's more current books on the list here on the blog.* But after I finished this one, I think I did read something else a while ago, and after looking on Chakraborty's website, I think it must have been The River of Silver, which are "Tales from the Daevabad Trilogy," a book outside the trilogy, but including stories from that universe. If I remember correctly it included some stories that may contain spoilers for the trilogy, but it also contains stories that could have been, but weren't, part of the trilogy; alternative plot lines that may have originally been pursued while writing the trilogy and then abandoned or edited out.

Chakraborty says that she is a speculative fiction author, and who am I to disagree, but I'd say that this book falls into the fantasy group as well, and maybe more specifically the sword and sorcery sub-genre. The City of Brass exists in a concealed place where humans can't see or go, hidden in a world parallel to our own; similar to our culture of four or five hundred years ago, across lands that span from the northern and eastern coasts of Africa, across he Middle East to the Indian Subcontinent.** She's woven a pretty complex tale of the secret lives, cultures, and politics of the djinn culture. A people with races, homelands, languages, and abilities that may have all originated as one people, but have diverged over the centuries. Now these people are similar to men--who they do interact with--and have their own politics, religions, prejudices and wars.

Into this, drop our heroine, Nahri, who lives an orphaned, hand-to-mouth existence of cons and hustle on the streets of Cairo, and hopes for a better life, when she inadvertently becomes caught up in the djinn world. This was a fun one, and I found myself spending extra time reading it, and as I said, I'm looking forward to the next one.

 

* I speculated that The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi would have a follow-up, and it apparently does now--or will shortly. The Tapestry of Fate comes out in May.

** There is a map in the frontmatter of this book, and it wasn't until I finished that I discovered a glossary in the back, which would have been good to know as I was reading.

dark sacred night

I’m pretty sure this is a re-read... It’s possible I recognize the storyline from the TV show, but I’m not sure.* I haven’t been keeping up with my reviews or even recording which books I’ve read here on the blog, and preventing accidental purchases and re-reads is one of the main reasons I started keeping this blog.

Dark Sacred Night is a Harry Bosch novel is from 2018, and I may have read it in 2020 or '21, when I had some spotty record keeping on my reading, or even last year, when my record keeping bordered on nonexistent.

Michael Connelly has the Harry Bosch nailed down at this point, and this book may be our first introduction to Detective Renée Ballard, who teams up with Bosch to look at a cold case. There is a fair amount of Ballard own casework as well; a number of smaller cases that she works through at the same time the larger cold case arc is going on. This seems to me to help establish Ballard as a character readers (and Bosch) can relate to so that when she appears in future stories, we have a sense for who she is a little more quickly. Solving 2 or 3 other smaller cases builds her character’s résumé pretty quickly.**

Fans of Bosch books will probably like this one, although his overall personality story arc seems to be showing signs of stress in the form of a loosening of his moral code.

Because I’ve haven’t read the Bosch books in chronological order, it is harder to comment intelligently on the development of the Bosch character, but there it is!

 

* After some looking, this site says that Bosch season 6, is based on this book. Who would have thought that a site called Comic Book Resources, would be the site that has this info, altho I will say you need to dig for that name, as they seem to just go by CBR, and maybe that's why.

** Fans of Ballard may be pleased to hear that she has her own TV show, presumably a spinoff of the Bosch franchise. 

 

 

book marker collection

Click on the image to enlarge, as usual

I was visiting the Richard Salter Storrs Library in Longmeadow, Massachusetts this past week, and I was excited to find a collection of old bookmarks in a curio case, which serves at the coffee table for a small arrangement of wing-backed chairs and a few other seats by one of the many fireplaces in that handsome old building. 

The original building, designed by architects Smith & Bassette of Hartford, Connecticut, was opened in 1932, and then in 1992, it was renovated (carefully) and a large addition was added, which is sympathetic in design--at least on the exterior--to the original building. The addition was designed by King & Tuthill of Avon, Connecticut.*

This pretty little collection sits in one of the bright and well appointed reading rooms on the main floor of the old building. The fireplace had a fun, imitation log fire flickering away on the hearth. And the seats, were very comfortable. 

The bookmarks include paper, wood, leather, and metal designs. Some of the paper markers are cut; one looks like it was cut by hand! Others are painted, or printed with designs.  There is one made of fabric, in the form of a tiny doll, who's long swaddling clothed form the marker that fits between the pages. Fiber arts also include a cross stitch example, and an amazing tatted lace marker showing European buildings and a image of a tatter at work.

Lastly, there is a note in there describing the history and principals of the Foundazione Marcello Gori, which has been around since World War II, helping teach children hand crafts and history. They are apparently still around, and I assume that some of the markers represented are from there.

 

* King died in 2005 at 78.  Not sure about Tuthill but it seems as though the firm was renamed Tuthill and Wells at some point, altho I'm not sure if that was with the original Tuthill, or a descendant. They don't seem to be around any more.

 

 

 

unwanted guest

I picked up the paperback version of An Unwanted Guest at my library's book sale. I'll admit that I was in a hurry, but I'm not sure that a few more minutes with this book before taking it home would have helped. I'm not a big reader of mystery stories, but I've read a few. I'm thinking of The Best of Dr. Thorndyke Detective Stories, by R. Austin Freeman--which you can see in the column on the right of this page under the 'good' books heading--and of course, Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, which I've written about in 4 separate reviews here on the blog. You won't find a bunch of Dame Agatha Christie books on this blog for instance, and if you use the word cloud on the right hand column to sort for 'mystery' you'd find a few, but most of those are detective stories or police procedurals, or more likely, have some mysterious happenings that aren't revealed until the end. An Unwanted Guest, by contrast, is more of a traditional whodunit, more like the Freeman, Conan-Doyle, or Christie examples I've given.

Shari Lapena* has written her mystery using a classic whodunit scenario, or trope, if you prefer: Bunch of people thrown together in an isolated place, with no contact with the world beyond. When the crap hits the fan, everyone starts to wonder whodunit, quickly followed by, am I next? Whats different here, is that Lapena tells a complex, woven story, with lots of different viewpoints from the various character, and in many cases describes both what they are doing, as well as what they are feeling and thinking, when they are together, but also when they are alone. 

By the time we're getting toward then end, we know quite a bit about each of them, from both their personal thoughts as well as their conversations, and I was pretty impressed that I hadn't yet figured out who, in fact, dunit. 

The reason for that was a surprise! And yes, I guess you could say that this is a spoiler, which I don't normally do, but I'm not sure I could spoil this book any worse. The reason is because Lapena never tells us how or why the guilty person did what they did. Or, in fact, gave us any clues at all, until the final chapters where the guilty party graces us with a complete exposé of their history, their motives, and how they did it. Again, ALL invisible to us as readers until this very point. AND no one figured that out, or was ever privy to the guilty person's thoughts, just us readers. They got nabbed based on one piece of evidence found two pages before, which may or may not be enough to get them convicted. Its circumstantial, at best.

So I'm left feeling like: why did you make me read all this if there was nothing in there that would help me understand or solve any of it, and you were just going to tell me about it in 4 pages at the end. did she just mansplain that to me? i feel kind of dirty It was like watching Dateline. That show is aggravating: They already know who did it, they're just making me watch this drama play out for an hour before they tell me who did it. The only benefit Dateline has over this book, is that at least they share some of the evidence with you as they go along.

Don't bother. 

 

* When looking up the link to Lapena's website, I went there and another of her books is featured on the front page, with the title: She Didn't See It Coming, which is followed by the tagline; "and neither will you..." Hilarious! If its anything like this one, I can guarantee you won't see it coming, because Lapena won't show you!**

** That title and tagline--from a completely different book!--is almost enough to get me to add this title to my 'stinks' list on the right hand column. don't act when you're aggravated, phil

 

 

 

navola

I was in the library to look for some things to read. I normally check out the used book sale, which may seem crazy considering I'm buying books from a place that is full of free ones, but I do it for two reasons: first, I'm a slow reader, so I'm unlikely to finish a book before its due,* never mind multiple books, and second, the small amount of money goes to support the library, especially given the fact that I return most of those books in the form of donations to the book sale. One of the reasons I started this blog was to keep track of the books I've bought so that I don't buy them again. yeah, that happens

Anyhoo, I found two books at the book sale, one of which my wife read in about 2 days, and the second I've just started today. The third book I found was in the new books section. I thought I'd take a look and see if any of my favorite authors had published anything new. Alpha-by-author got me to Bacigalupi, Paolo, which was a pleasant surprise. Once I found Navola, I stopped looking. Bacigalupi** has written a few novels for adults, and a few more for teens. I read the teens books, and they're pretty good, but I like his adult fiction/SF better. Navola was a treat.

Bacigalupi has developed a world based on Renaissance Europe, and is focused on the city-state of Navola, in the upper eastern part of a 'hook' shaped peninsula poking out into a sea with countries to the north, west, and south coastal regions. Its pretty clear that the 'hook' is based on the pre-Italian conglomeration of city-states, duchies, and kingdoms, and has French-like and German-like countries to the north, Turkish and further Asian countries to the east, and Arabic-type countries on the southern shores of the sea. Where there they have dragons, or they used to, at least.

Navola is a coming of age story, with political, social, and familial intrigues, romance, and violence,with glimpses at historical gods, and the believe systems that grew from them. Bacigalupi has created a world with depth and history, rife with monetary, cultural, and nobility clashes. Navola also appears to be the first is a series of books based on this world Bacigalupi has created. Maybe the good news is that this book actually came out in 2024, although I'm not sure why I haven't seen it until now or why its on the new books shelf at the library a year and a half later, but maybe that means the next installment isn't too far off?

  

* Yes, I know I can renew it. In fact my library now has automatic renewals and no late fees. 

** Bacigalupi is a fun name, and its Italian, which may have something to do with the inspiration for the fantasy setting of this story in a pre-Italian peninsula of city-states and other Euro-inspired surrounding countries, but a search for the origin of this surname led to differing, but interesting results:

One site has it listed, confoundingly as "unattensted verb bacigare ‘to hunt’ + lupo ‘wolf’" Unattensted apparently means: not existing in any documented form. Super helpful.

Wikipedia has this to say: "Bacigalupi (Ligurian: Bâçigalô) is an Italian surname from Liguria, literally translating to 'wolf-wounder' " Altho, its funny, when I translated bacigalo, it means 'kiss him,' but dialect is always funny.

Hunter, or wounder? And a few others besides, see below. So I used my dangerous level of Italian comprehension to search in Italian, and this site (thanks to google translate) says: "It derives from a nickname linked to the Genoese dialect word basigâ, "to swing/to tease," and lupi, meaning "the one who swings/teases the wolves." The nickname probably indicated a wolf hunter (who attached the skins to a stick to carry them, hence the swinging motion), or a wolf skin merchant." M'kay.

This guy, who maintains his own site, as a kind of commonplace book, thinks it's a: "compound surname derived from "bacia" (kiss) and "lupo" (wolf), thus literally meaning "kiss the wolf." I'm assuming that is a wild guess? I'll admit, I was under the impression it was baci [(you) kiss] + whatever galupi meant, but galupi meant nothing. Except...

The same guy has a page on the name origin of the surname Galuppi, which he says: "is derived from the nickname "galuppo," meaning "crest" or "tuft,". If that is the case, I'm not sure why he didn't assume that Bacigalupi means to 'kiss the crest' which certainly sounds like a thing... coat of arms, signet ring, to show respect, allegiance, etc. Well, to me anyway. 

The world may never know.

 

 

eisenhorn: the omnibus

This book is not one I would have picked out for myself--this was a Christmas gift this year (thanks Jacob!)--but I ended up enjoying it even more that I expected. I don't know anything about Warhammer or how its different from warcraft but I assume Gregor Eisenhorn is a character from the video game,* and Dan Abnett has written these stories about him under contract with the Warhammer folks. The frontmatter and backmatter in this paperback talk about a bunch of other stories in the 'Black Library', which is a series of stories from different writers about characters and storylines from Warhammer.

Because the Warhammer universe is so far into the future, mankind has moved out into the galaxy (maybe beyond? don't know, nerds) so that men now live on thousands of planets, and have done for thousands of years. This, I think, makes for a ripe backdrop for story telling given that these worlds now all have their own histories, cultures, flora and fauna, that influence the people that live there. While some planets are more centralized, and their cultures more homogeneous, more distance or isolated planets diverge more from the centralized culture and norms of the empire.

The stories in this book are all that have been written by Dan Abnett about this character, and they are arranged chronologically and so we can follow Eisenhorn's character development, along with those of his team members, throughout their long (and sometimes short) careers. I do love SciFi, but again, this isn't something I would have chosen for myself, however, I did find myself stealing extra moments to read a little longer, or forgoing other things in order to read another chapter. The stories range from novels (there are a few novel length stories) and some short stories of varying lengths (magazine article length, to novellas). Its a big boy; Eisenhorn: The Omnibus is nearly a thousand pages, but it didn't take too long for me to read. 

I especially liked how Abnett describes the dress, food, drink, or technology of a scene in detail (sometimes including the ingredients of a dish, for example) and then names off the bits that make up whatever he is describing using series of made-up words and phrases that can only be understood by their context, and gives no further definitions or descriptions. I think this needs to be done carefully so as not to overwhelm the reader with SciFi speak, and Abnett does a good job threading that needle.

 

* Sorry nerds, Warhammer is apparently not a video game (maybe Warcraft is?) Apparently its a fantasy combat board game played with miniatures and its been around since the early 80s. 

 

 

 

inspriration theory for conan painting

Frazetta image used without permission

Maybe I'm crazy maybe that's a given but I was scrolling thru the interwebs today when I saw the famous Conan the Adventurer painting by Frank Frazetta, the first one he did for the 1967 Lancer book cover of the same name. According to one article I read, the painting actually done in 1966 even tho Frazetta dated in 1965. Who knows, but Frazetta was pretty well known for exaggerating the truth, lets say.

When I saw this image (It was used as the thumbnail for a YouTube documentary about Frazetta, that I didn't watch) it struck me that the pose Conan has is a little odd: arms straight down, elbows rolled out and locked, shoulders hunched, head down. Yet his hands are relaxed, one propped on his sword hilt. My first thought was, that this looks a guy operating a jackhammer. Pushing down with both arms, elbows locked, head down, shoulders hunched, and muscles all flexed. 

 

So that's my theory, Frazetta saw a guy operating a jackhammer and the pose stuck with him. 

Not 'jacked' like Conan, but...

 

Like I said, maybe I'm crazy, but Frazetta told this interviewer that he banged out in a day. Probably took a few weeks, and actually went through a few iterations, including finishing up some of the details that the first draft didn't have yet when it was apparently shown to the Lancer folks. But he says he did it from his imagination, which makes me think he meant without models.

The more modern way of operating a jackhammer isn't like this, the weight of the tool does more of the work, and operators usually have a more of a relaxed grip, with bent elbows to help absorb the shock, but when I was a kid, jackhammers were muscled into the ground by leaning on them really hard. And I'm old enough now, that my childhood years are just a few years after this painting was done, so this is how I recall seeing construction workers on the roads operating these things. I can imagine Frazetta stopped on the road in traffic, caused by construction, and taking a look at a guy working the jackhammer into the pavement on a hot day and that image sticking with him until this painting.

Frazetta went on to do a series of Conan book cover art paintings, which you can see here. 

Prove me wrong. 

 

the thirst

Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø has penned another Harry Hole novel in the series, called The Thirst. Harry Hole (pronounced HO-leh, apparently; and Harry is pretty much pronounced like Harry) is a detective working for the police department in Oslo, and this is number 11 in the Harry Hole series. I've read a few others, but only one is listed here on the blog. When I wrote about that one, I commented that I was sure I read another but didn't write about it here. This one, like the other I've linked above, was translated into English by Neil Smith.

Hole is a murder detective, and at this point in his life he's actually retired from the police department and is teaching at the police college, but he is called back to work a case that appears to be perpetrated by a serial killer that got away from Hole years ago, and seems to gone to ground, at least until now. Hole reluctantly returns to police work to catch this deranged killer as the victims fall by the day.

Nesbø writes a good story, and the differences between Norwegian crime fiction and American crime fiction is not all that is different, altho that is a treat. Nesbø weaves a complex tale, and when you think the twists and turns are all uncovered, there are more to come. This was a good one, and I'll keep my eye out for more of Nesbø's writing, whether its a Harry Hole story or something else Nesbø has written.

reality is not what it seems

Carlo Rovelli picked a great title when he chose Reality is Not What it Seems for this follow up to his Seven Brief Lessons on Physics,* which started out a pamphlet and became an international best seller. Rovelli talks a little bit about this in the introduction; how this book came to be; how people had been asking him to explain the theories of quantum gravity in layman's terms, which he was reluctant to try and do. He did try when pressed, and the result was a small book, but because of its popularity, he was pressed further to expand on that work and the result, he explains, is this book.

I will go ahead and tell you now, that I was quoting phrases, and reading passages out loud to anyone who would listen. my apologies to my family When I finished, I gave the book to my wife and recommended that she read it.

In the first few chapters, Rovelli traces the history of where we are in physics, and our understanding of how the universe works. How scientists and philosophers built upon the work of their predecessors to unlock the secrets of the universe as we know it. Because I am interested in this kind of thing, I had a pretty good idea about where we are and how we got there, but the story that Rovelli tells both provided missing links in the trail of information, extended what I understood and how different theories relate to one another, and in a way that was both succinct, and mesmerizing. Two chapters in and I was hooked.

Rovelli then goes on to describe quantum physics, and what we know about it, building upon what we've learned in the past, until he gets to the point where the theories aren't proven yet, and its still conjecture and competing theses. He points out that there are two main branches of theories, the one he is working on and believes in, and the other, which is string theory. You got me about which is correct, or more correct, but he makes a passionate argument.

Read this Book--I enjoyed it thoroughly--but maybe only if you are interested in this kind of stuff. Its good, but I'm not sure how much general appeal it will have for the less geekily inclined.

* You can download a copy of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by clicking here.