pillars of the earth

The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett was, as you might expect, completely different from Follett's other stuff. Just after I started reading it, a few people asked me what it was about, and I replied that I had just started, but it seemed like it was about building cathedrals. [That's when I got the funny faces, wrinkled noses, you know, like someone stepped in something.] But that's not what its about, thankfully.

Follett uses the building of a cathedral as a framework on which to hang his story; maybe saga is a better word. The story is really about people. Its an historical novel about people in the 1100's and what life was like for a group in England, who happen to have a cathedral in common. The energy and effort that goes into the building of a cathedral in this era is huge, and that's what drives the story.

Follett has a fresh take on the people of this time period, and seems to take some of his clues from other early evidence, such as The Canterbury Tales, to give his characters life in a way that modern day readers can relate to. Characters fall into two main groups: the church folk, and the not church folk. Each group is further broken down into good guys, and bad guys. That is: there those factions within both the men of the cloth, and the laymen, who want to get the cathedral built, and there are those within each group who don't. Got it? Maybe that's why it takes just shy of a thousand pages to get this story wrapped up.

I actually enjoyed this one quite a bit. I was concerned when I first started it, that it would be a retelling of The Heaven Tree trilogy by Edith Pargeter--which was also very good, by the way--but I'm happy to say that it wasn't.

Apparently, there was a TV mini-series based on the book. I found this whilst doing a little research. Did anyone see it?

Read this book, first.

book size

Found a good one! Carl Pyrdum's blog, titled Got Medieval, is a treat for us geeks who enjoy the old timey stuff; specifically, medieval stuff. Pyrdum is a grad student in Medieval Studies at Yale. His posts typically have to do with things medieval and/or modern things which either describe themselves as, or could be seen as medieval. Where else are you going to read about what a sixty-fourmo is in the blogorama?

So how did I find him: it was this entry on 'Why are books so big? (Google Penance)' which describes why books are the size that they are. Its based on the size of a sheep of course. I won't spoil the fun for you, you should just clicky-click on the link and read it fer yerself. Of course the whole thing makes complete sense once you read it, and I found myself scanning through lots of his blog posts in search of more gems and witicisms.

Carl also points out that he is Bacon number 4. You can find out how at his blog.

the sanctuary

I'm not even sure what The Sanctuary is. I don't mean that I couldn't tell what kind of book I was reading. I'm talking about the title; I'm not completely sure what it refers to. It could refer to a place, or maybe even a state of mind. It probably refers to a couple of things. Or maybe it's just not all that important.

In any case, Raymond Khoury writes a pretty good story. I have his 2005 book, The Last Templar, but I haven't read it yet. I read a Steve Berry novel called The Templar Legacy, which shows up in read-alike lists, so I'll probably read Khoury's Templar book too. You know you luuve those crazy Templar knights as much as I do. Its okay, we can't help ourselves. Just give in. ((Dan Brown whispers in our dreams.))

If this book had one draw back, it was the fancy vocabulary. I've complained about this before. This is an action story, right? A fast-paced, page turner. Throw in any throw away review cliche you like, just don't slow down the action, am I right? You know what slows down the action: versciciously. You know what that one means? Nothing, I made it up. I think its great to build your vocab skills. Word-o'-the-Day calendars are swell gifts for someone you don't know that well. But all the words from May 3rd 'til June 21st, really don't need to go into your manuscript.

It just seems so verscicious.

the twelfth card

Geneva is a well-to-do inner city girl, who, despite her hard work, attention to her schoolwork, and the misfortune of being without her parents, has also had to deal with an attempted rape and assault. Will this poor girl ever get a break? Nope, sorry.

Lincoln Rhyme and his able assistant and girlfriend, Amelia Sachs, step in to help Geneva but it seems that the wannabe rapist/killer is still looking for her. When the Rhyme-Sachs team dig a little deeper, they find that Geneva may be in a whole lot more trouble than they originally envisioned. And not only do they need to figure out who's after her, but why. The historical twist to this one added some fun too.

Jeffery Deaver does a good job of laying out an interesting and twisty crime mystery for Rhyme and company to solve. And solve it they do, but it doesn't all just drop in their laps; there are some bumps along the way. Deaver's sense of character development seems to be in overdrive in this volume. One can only guess that he's been feeling that he hasn't given it enough attention in the other Lincoln Rhyme stories, but I don't read enough of them to be sure. Maybe his character's are always cranking away with their personal demons, friendships and love lives.

I've read a couple of Lincoln Rhyme novels and this one holds up well. I'd read another based on this experience, certainly.

nine dragons

What is the missing puzzle piece that links together Harry Bosch's latest murder case of an older Chinese store owner, the Chinese Triads, the abduction of Bosch's daughter in Hong Kong, vague telephone threats, a scared partner, gangland style executions, and, of all people, Bosch's ex-wife's new boyfriend? This is the mystery Harry Bosch must unravel in Michael Connelly's Nine Dragons.

So what DOES tie all of these elements together? Nothing. Sorry to break it to you, but don't bother. Nothing ties this lukewarm detective story together.

This 2009 adventure takes Bosch to Hong Kong to save his daughter and figure out how her abduction relates to all the other sub-plots and mysteries in this story. But it seems like Connelly just gave up. Oops, Bosch seems to say, I guess this whole thing was just weird series of coincidences and misunderstandings that were completely unrelated. What he doesn't seem to say, or even worry about, is why all those people had to die, as he shot his way through Hong Kong, other than a pat on his daughter's head and something like: well honey, don't worry, those were bad people, and they got what they deserved.

I've read a few Harry Bosch novels, and I've even recommended the series to fans of detective novels, but not this one boy. This one goes on the 'stinks' list in the right hand column. Yeah, check it out, its on there alright.

Oh, and Mike, you got a laurel stuck to your ass. Yeah, there it is, you got it.

the three musketeers

The Three Musketeers was a blast.--That's not a crummy joke. There was very little musket fire, as I'm sure most folks will know, even without reading this book.--The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my all time favorites, so it may seem a little odd that I haven't read this next-most-popular Alexandre Dumas novel (the third being The Man in the Iron Mask) but I've always felt that the characters were just too over exposed. I mean, a candy bar? Come on. But I got over it. And seeing a one dollar copy in good shape recently, sealed the deal. What really put me over the top tho was that I brought it along as a back-up on a recent trip to Italy. So when I finished my first book (Hyperion) I jumped right into the Musketeers. What a ball. I couldn't put it down. I read at breakfast. I read in bed. I read while my family took a siesta at midday when it was 100 outside.

Dumas wrote for serial publication, as many of his contemporaries did, each chapter moves the story forward and leaves the reader hungering for the next installment. Dumas really had that down and he knew he did. Dumas also speaks directly to his readers, not just in the authors note, where he describes how his fiction is based on the true memoirs of a real musketeer named d'Artagnan, but along the way as well. One can almost imagine him telling the story to us after dinner, perhaps around a fire, with a cigar or a small glass of muscatel. Don't worry, he tells us, I haven't forgotten so-and-so, we'll get back to them soon enough.

Dumas seems fascinated by heroes who make their own way in world, and create their own fortunes. He also has no trouble showing the darker side of men, even his heroes, and the lengths they will go to to insure that justice is done and righteousness is upheld. This may be because of his own upbringing, and his father's struggles to make his fortune, and even his own money problems, which seem to plague his career.

Whatever the impetus, Dumas breathes real life and a love of living into his heroes that makes him a joy to read. The Three Musketeers was no exception.

Read this book... in Italy. [France is probably fine too, I guess.]

hyperion

Hyperion was recommended to me by an Italian friend just recently, and before he and his fiance went back to Italy, they were kind enough to give me a copy. The story seems to jump right in, setting the tone of a mystery the reader has to untangle. The story is told through the eyes of series of pilgrims who start out on the last pilgrimage to a very strange part of Hyperion; a planet on the very edges of human expansion in the galaxy. Hyperion's past is sketchy and only partly understood by the pilgrims; who have spent most of their lives closer to the central, more inhabited parts of the galaxy. Moreover, none of the pilgrims is quite sure why they were chosen to participate in this last pilgrimage, and they know even less about their fellow travelers.

The larger story unfolds during the pilgrimage, when the travelers decide to tell their personal stories, and how Hyperion came into their lives. The tales help to pass the time on the road, and help them get to know one another. Echos of The Canterbury Tales came to mind almost immediately, but the author also had The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in mind.

Hyperion is tight, and carefully written. The whole story doesn't manifest itself in any one of the seven tales the pilgrims tell, or even in all the stories combined. Rather, its in what isn't said, and when I think about it, it also comes from our own stories as readers. What we bring to the story helps to fill in the blanks, making us, as readers, the eight pilgrim. I guess that means the story is a little different for everyone.

There are other volumes about Hyperion and I'll pick them up to see whether the story continues from here, or if the enigma of Hyperion is just fertile ground for stories.

Hyperion, by Dan Simmons, (c) 1989. I read a 1995 Bantam reissue paperback.

I read three books on my trip to Italy, so I've got two more coming up soon. Yeah, vacation!

neuromancer

Yeah! Neuromancer was great! William Gibson's iconic SciFi novel from the 80's is loaded with imagery, and ideas that seem to have been ripped off, wholesale, by all kinds of cyberpunk and science fiction movies, books and TV shows. Gibson is know for his cyberpunk stories, and comes early into this tradition in the 80's--along with others--and helped to create a new sub-genre. The Disney movie Tron was one of the earlier in cyberpunk stories, in 1980. But who knows, Gibson and some of the others could have been well into their stories by then. I'm sure someone knows more about this than me. Cyperpunk was first coined by Bruce Bethke, in his 1980 short story of the same name, originally published in AMAZING Science Fiction Stories. AMAZING had a good run, but after dying a number of times, it died again in 2004. No word yet on whether it will be revived. Yet again. [Sounds like the makings of a story.] This book has been published/re-printed over and over again, with new covers to meet the style needs of the day. This was one of the books featured in an article about the history of SciFi in book covers, which I wrote about here. There may be making a movie in the works according to the online hum. Rumors include Hayden Christensen for a role, but who knows. And Disney has announced a remake of Tron called Tron: Legacy for Christmas this year. So as you can imagine, if you've read any cyberpunk or seen Tron, a chunk of this story takes place in cyberspace, but not too much. The main characters are very real, live in a real place, and deal with real problems. What our main protagonist would call 'meat'; shorthand for issues of the flesh rather than the clean, neural interface with the net. What so great is: he can't escape the meat, and its what gives him the most trouble really. Internet use is like a drug, an addiction that he needs to survive, and he'll do almost anything for the next fix. The addictiveness of the behavior seems to be a sub-theme of the story, and given when it was written, seems to me remarkably foresighted. This story asks lots of interesting questions about what the future of technology, computing and artificial intelligence will mean for mankind. Some of those we're dealing with right now, and others aren't too far off. I can see why this story has had such holding power for nearly 30 years; It seems very current. Read this book.

hopkinton bookmark

That's Hop-kin-ton, without the 'king'. I know, right? I spelled it wrong the first 5 or 6 times I wrote it. The Hopkinton Pubic Library is a beautiful old stone building from 1895, on Main Street. The design is simple and elegant, and is surprisingly small. The building looks bigger on the outside I think because its set up on a raised grade, and the windows are small. So small, that the building looks big by comparison. We have some old postcards of this one in our postcard collection.

Along about 1965, the library was out of space and bought the little church next door, built a link and expanded into the sanctuary. The church is of a similar vintage, 1897, made of stone, altho field stone, as opposed to the coursed and dressed rubble of the library. Both roofs are clay tile however, and contrary to the red tint on one of the colorized postcard images, the tiles are shale colored. According to Hopkinton Pubic Library: A Brief History, available on the library's site, the library was:

"established by the Young Men’s Christian Association in 1867. Seven members served as the Trustees, incorporated the Library and adopted by-laws for the government of the Library in 1890."

This bookmark is printed on glossy card stock and is two color, with a full bleed and printed front and back. The reverse has the hours, contact numbers, and other helpful info, like the library's website.