The Plentiful Vintage

My legs are sore, my back aches, and my right index finger hurts when I move it. Yes, I've been playing volleyball.

Have had a couple of busy weekends in a row, with one more to come (Readercon). Youngest sister visited with her kids two weekends ago, so we did all sorts of stuff. Spent a day over in Newport gawking at the rich folks and their cottages. Spent another day on Block Island (aka, the Block Island Death March) walking hither and yon in the heat and humidity, since we didn't have bikes for the younger kids*. Still, a good time was had by most all, except for younger nephew who was being quite the pill and is fortunate the rest of us decided not to reenact the massacre at Mohegan Bluffs. The next day was a combination pool/volleyball party where the kids swam and I played volleyball for the first time in a year. I also introduced them all to Pratchett via the adaptation of Hogfather, and teenaged nephew left for home with the loan of several books.

* My suggestion that we let the adults and teenager ride whilst the little kids walked was met with disapproval, alas.

This past weekend had another pool/volleyball party, and I played a lot, which is why I ache all over. Still, it's a good ache, and I'm contemplating going back and playing again with the group at the Guild come September. I'd quit after I had my bike accident in 2004, which was followed by back troubles, and general problems with being old and fat. But I've lost considerable weight, and I've been considering going back. I hadn't yet because I was wondering if I could still play up to the competition at my age, but I was able to keep up without embarrassing myself the past two weekends, so maybe. I doubt I could do it every week like I used to, but it'd be fun.

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July 4th is my annual marker for trimming back the shrubs, and I started working on that. The problem has always been the size of the shrubs in front of the house. They're huge, because the previous owner wasn't diligent about keeping them trimmed back, and they're a pain to keep in check. I don't mind so much with the rhododendrons, because they are gorgeous in the spring, but the arbor vitae and, especially, the junipers (I'm mildly allergic) drive me crazy.

So anyway, I was out there trimming away, and I finally decided to do something about it. Went into the basement, found the chainsaw, and cut down juniper #1. Then I spent the next couple of days hacking away at all the intertwined branches with my loppers to separate them all into manageable bits so's that I could dispose of them all. I was worried that the side of the rhododendron would appear bare now that it's neighbor is gone, but it's not too bad, and will undoubtedly grow in now that it has more access to its environs. Juniper #2 meets its fate this week, and then I'll make a decision about the arbor vitae. Then I'll need to replace them with something. I'm thinking azaleas.

Reading is fun-damental; writing about it is harder...

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( When you look into the abyss, it's not supposed to wave back. )

Now to work on the rest of the list...

When the Tide Rises — David Drake

Another episode in the Aubrey/Maturin inspired Leary/Mundy series. Despite my dislike for certain background details, I am enjoying these books far more than recent Honorverse books. For one thing, there is far less exposition. For another, I find it far more interesting to see what Daniel Leary can do by firing, say, two missiles at an enemy ship than Honor Harrington can do firing 60,000 or so.

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Escape from Hell — Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

The recently released sequel to Inferno. Carpenter has tried to take over Benito's mission of helping souls escape from Hell, but hasn't been very successful. The book opens with him telling his story to one of the trees in the grove of suicides, who turns out to be Sylvia Plath. He manages to free her from her treehood, and together they head for the exit at the center of Hell.

( Redeeming qualities... )

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Soul Music — Terry Pratchett

It is said that whosoever the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. In fact, whosoever the gods wish to destroy, they first hand the equivalent of a stick with a fizzing fuse and Acme Dynamite Company written on the side. It's more interesting, and doesn't take so long.

( would they remember some felonious monk or would they shout for Glod Glodsson? )

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Storm from the Shadows — David Weber

I had hopes. The Shadow of Saganami was supposed to be the first of an Honorverse series that did not involve Harrington and the interminable politics and incredibly lame soap opera surrounding her. It still had annoyances, but for the most part was mostly about action rather than talking heads. Now comes this second book, and it's almost entirely talking heads, and worse, the talking heads are just rehashing the same information over and over and over. Plus there is again the whole massive overkill syndrome (The fleet had all the latest defensive technology, but even that couldn't stop all of the 60,000 missiles now heading for it...) It's not really a sequel to SoS, although a couple of characters continue from that book, but rather it first retells the end of the last Honor Harrington book from Michelle Henke's point of view, and then spends the next 600 pages or so setting up a cliffhanger that will be resolved in the next Harrington book. (Weber's new technological twist is apparently a starfaring analog to modern submarine warfare.) Incredibly disappointing. Feh.

Wow, it's been awhile. Six books read, three of which tread similar ground. I'll get to them later. Here are the three that have nothing at all to do with each other.

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And Be a Villain — Rex Stout

Continuing along the Wolfe canon, we finally meet Arnold Zeck, Wolfe's Moriarty. The mystery here is kind of a mess, relying on some unlikely events, and seems mostly aimed at introducing Zeck. I'm not sure the scheme behind the mystery would ever work as neatly as Wolfe, Cramer, and Zeck all seem to think it does (and events in the book are among the examples that indicate why). You know it's a bad case when Archie doesn't flirt with any of the women involved.

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Rails Under the Mighty Hudson — Brian J. Cuddahy

( The Tubes... )

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Pyramids — Terry Pratchett

An early Discworld book that isn't really part of any of the main Discworld storylines. It about, well, pyramids, of course, and some mummies, and the Discworld's greatest mathematician, who happens to be a camel. Much fun, as usual.

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Listen, I don't mean to be a sore loser, but when it's done, if I'm dead, kill him.

R.I.P., Paul Newman, who was a heck of an actor and a heck of a human being.

I used serenada's version.

( I didn't read a LOT of books... )

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The Science of Discworld — Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, and Jack Cohen

As for books I have read, I just finished this one, which uses a short Pratchett novel as a framework for discussing science. Ponder Stibbins is running an experiment in the High Energy Magic building at Unseen University. The experiment, of course, goes awry, creating a pocket universe containing a world not totally unlike our own, a development that totally stuns the observing wizards, who are used to less spherical, more carried on the backs of giants elephants standing on an even bigger turtle type worlds. They decide to send Rincewind in as a reluctant, on-the-spot observer.

The novel runs in the odd-numbered chapters. Meanwhile, in the even-numbered ones, the two science guys explain what Rincewind was looking at in the previous chapter as the world develops. It's your basic general overview of the sciences, a little physics, a little chemistry, some geology, and a whole lot of evolution. The science guys are funny, so it's all a bit of a lark, especially if you've been a scientist since about the fifth grade or so. Still I did learn a few things. One thing that I'd never even considered before reading this book is that if you throw a proton onto a neutron star, it becomes one big honkin' hydrogen atom. That's pretty neat.

Have watched the first half of The Colour of Magic. ( Casting spoiler... )

First up is a reread of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Company, which tells how Sharpe and Harper, as usual, led the assault on the fortress city of Badajoz. There's a lot of grim in the book. Sharpe's old enemy, Hakeswill, shows up, causing chaos amongst the ranks. Also, it focuses on siege warfare, so the body count may be the highest of any of the books, especially on the British side. Cannister is nasty stuff.

Afterwards, I watched the first four eps of the TV series, starting with Sharpe's Rifles, then Sharpe's Eagle, Sharpe's Company, and Sharpe's Enemy. The adaptations are all good, and Company probably has the closest correspondence to events in the book upon which it's based. It's fun picking out actors who've gone on to other things. Daniel Craig plays a villain in Eagle. Elizabeth Hurley shows up as Sharpe's ex-lover in Enemy. Plus, these are the four episodes with Assumpta Serna as Theresa.

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I also just finished Mort, Pratchett's vision of Death takes a holiday, and it's just terrific. I laughed out loud a lot. And "sodomy non sapiens" may become my new motto.

An hour ago Cutwell had thumbed through the index of The Monster Fun Grimoire and had cautiously assembled a number of common household ingredients and put a match to them.

Funny thing about eyebrows, he mused. You never really noticed them until they'd gone.

There was also this:

When you step off a cliff, your life takes a very definite direction.

which is such an apt description.

I've taken to reading books on my Palm, and I seem to be reading faster and with more comprehension. Take that, Evelyn Wood! I think both can be attributed to the small amount of text visible, which makes it hard to lose one's place on the page after a distraction. The only negative so far is the screen contrast ain't the greatest when I'm reading in the truck at lunch. On the plus side, it's easy to highlight and bookmark text for later review.

( The Rubber Band — Rex Stout )
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( Over My Dead Body — Rex Stout )
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( The Fifth Elephant — Terry Pratchett )
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( Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — J.K. Rowling )

I've actually been reading quite a bit, I just haven't been writing it down.

Preludes and Nocturnes -- Neil Gaiman
The Doll's House -- Neil Gaiman
Dream Country -- Neil Gaiman

This is the second time I've tried Gaiman's Sandman series of graphic novels, and although I got further this time, I'm still not as impressed as a lot of folks seem to be. I like Gaiman's novels, but these leave me sort of flat.

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Deadly Quicksilver Lies -- Glen Cook
Petty Pewter Gods -- Glen Cook
Faded Steel Heat -- Glen Cook

Awhile back I bought the entire Garrett series collected in omnibus editions from the SF Bookclub. These three novels are in one of them, and since they are set within a few days of each other, I found it sort of helps to read the three in one go. The context resulted in me even sort of liking Gods this time around, previously my least favorite of all the Garretts. Lies is the best of the three, a very good mystery emphasizing the Garrett and Dotes team. Steel has it's moments, but is a bit contrived. One thing that occurred to me while reading these is that while Cook draws a lot of his inspiration from the Nero Wolfe books, upon reflection, Morley Dotes is a dead ringer for Hawk from the Spencer books. "Spen-sah!"

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Small Gods -- Terry Pratchett

One of my accidental Pratchetts, this one is just flat out charming, about a young man with a special talent, and the very special tortoise that befriends him. I liked it a lot.