Bokcirkel info

Detta meddelande gäller endast bokcirklens medlemmar...

Tyvärr kan jag inte komma till Malmö på söndag för vårt trevliga och efterlängtade diskussionsmöte. Detta på grund av att jag denna helgen ska ha årets sista (?) utesovar läger på än så länge okänd plats (det ryktas dock om bokskogar och hav). TiotusenUruk-hais, tvåhundra ryttare från Rohan och ett grottroll hade itne kunnat hålla mig borta från denna händelse. Men det innebär att jag inte kommer på klubbmötet :o( Förslag på böcker har jag dock: vad sägs om något av Lovecraft?
Vi hörs!

Andromeda (tv-serie)

Nu har jag sett de sju första avsnitten av Gene Roddenberrys (Star Treks skapare) skapelse Andromeda och jag gillar den. Trots att den har en grundhandling som är rätt fånig (en man på ett skepp vill återskapa det fallna Commonwealth som var en union av miljontals världar innan det föll vid en kupp för 300 år sedan) och ett intro/tema som låter som det är hämtat ur gamla Nintendospelet Legend of Zelda på 80-talet...

Karaktärerna är charmiga och/eller kul och/eller intressanta och de är skapade med lite djup i till skillnad från Farscape där alla känns platta som pannkakor. Det tog ett tag innan jag kom på var jag har sett kapten Dylan Hunt förut, men insåg efter ett par avsnitt att det är Hercules himself som dragit till rymden...

Handlingen: The Commonwealth attackeras av Nietzchians och hela flottan går under utom kapten Hunts skepp som kommer för nära ett svart hål i stridens hetta. Alla i besättningen evakueras utom kaptenen som blir hängande vid händelsehorisonten i sitt skepp Andromeda Ascendant (ett sorts 'liveship'). 300 år senare upptäcks Andromeda av ett gäng oppurtunister som ser sin chans att tjäna storkovan på att kränga ett gammalt Commonwealth-stridsskepp till skummisar och de bärgar Andromeda. De har dock inte räknat med att det ska finnas någon levande ombord, men vid händelsehorisontens rand går tiden oändligt långsamt och för kaptenen har ingen tid alls förflutit... Efter en del förvecklingar, mm, och han ser hur hans värld har förfallit inser han att enda sättet att skapa stabilitet i galaxen är att återskapa det gamla Commonwealth...

Betyg: 4-

Orphans of Chaos

Orphans of Chaos. John.C. Wright ***( av 5)

This is one seriously strange book.
That said, I’ll try to elaborate.
In a British-type boarding school, three young boys and two young girls (Victor, Collin, Quentin and Amelia and Vanity) live and learn. But what do they learn? And how do they live? For starters, there is just the five of them as students, and about nine teachers, not counting the servants. And the boarders, especially to the south, seems to shift and take on strange proportions. The teachers are weird, to say the least, and the children get to learn things that five years as a professor wouldn’t tech you. And the kids themselves….
Victor can see the molecular matter of objects and manipulate them
Collin is a psychic, or rather an emphat – his desires charges his ability to change the world.
Quentin is a warlock.
Amelia can se in four dimensions and change objects matter/density
Vanity can find paths through space-continuum.
Truly, this school would make Hogwarts look sane.

However, this is not a superhero book. I don’t really know what to call it. An adolescence book? Well, yes, there is some love and growing-up going on. But parts of it is…disturbing in a way because its not what you would expect in an adolescence book. A theme of dominance – submission runs through the story in a slightly unnerving way.
A science book? Well it does require you to have a very firm grasp on Greek mythology (even more so than I have, I admit it), Einsteins theories of relativity (of which I have none, so I skipped those parts), astro-physics, astronomy, maths, hisoty, religion (all religions) poetry, legends from all over the world and it helps if you know a little something about the politics of Atlantis in the last thousands years or so and so on (and everyone’s new favourite Anansi does a cameo. He really seems to be the hot item of the year).
And all of this in a book barely 300 pages long.
Wow.
But in the middle, when your head is spinning in at least five dimensions, the author does tell you the trick. This is not a book about science, or growing up. This is a book about how we see the world, and how we change it merely by observing it. It is a book about how we all se the world differently and how the same event is interpreted differently because of it.
In other words, it’s a book about philosophy.
It is also a book about the war between different realities, but lets not go there right now.

I don’t know what to think of this book. I was disturbed by the dominance – submission theme, because even if these ‘kids’ are super-beings as old as time they still think and look like, well, kids. I was slightly bored at the endless ranting of philosophy – physics which I could barely even begin to understand. I was intrigued by the old Gods theme, but haven’t we all read a lot of that this last year? It has been done better.
But I did like the questions about what reality is, and how it changes depending on who’s looking at it.
All in all, a strange book. I’ll leave it at that.

Book quote: You do not have the energy relationship in the moral direction a person devoted to God normally manifests. You relationship structures are extensional rather than intentional, and form nodes going in two time-directions, but not toward eternity. This type of atrophy is typical of atheists and agnostics.

Nightrunners

Luck in the Shadows, Stalking Darkness, Traitor’s Moon – The Nightrunner series Lynn Flewelling ***

Is there anything worse in the world than the bitter disappointment in a book?
Well, yes, of course there is lots of worse things. But right now, let me tell you, it’s hard to imagine more than one or two.
It’s not that Luck in the Shadows a poor book. It’s just...just...just not all I imagined it would be. I feel like I did when I first saw the casting of Legolas in PJ’s LotR. What was supposed to be one of the greatest moments of my life just fell flat on the ground and left med with a horrendous disappointment and a growing rage. At least this time I will not howl threats about cliffs, manacles and wrists in the general direction of the perpetrator.
Will not.
Will not.
Ah, what the hell just once more...(You’re gone live to regret this, Peter Jackson! I’ll hang you from a cliff by your hand until someone finds an eagle huge enough to carry you down, fat boy!)

Back on track....
Nightrunners is what you would get if you took Eddings character Silk and gave him his own story. Great premises, right? A lot of cloak-and-daggers, intrigues and witty remarks. Alas, no. This story is as straightforward as anything, and anyway the super-spy Seregil lays mad, wounded and/or unconscious most of the time. Wasn’t he supposed to be good at his job?

Alec is a young boy, accidentally mistaken for a spy, who get rescued by this strange man
(? yeah, you get pretty quickly what he is, pointy ears or not...) called Seregil. Having apparently nothing better to do with his life, he decides to follow this supposed clever, suspicious, charming and dangerous man, who seems thinks it’s a great idea to pull a farm boy who’s showing some talent with a bow into his life.
Or is that really the meat–and-bone of their relationship?
Something is growing between the two of them, something more than pure friendship, and it’s complicating Seregils relationship to his pupil to no end as the story moves on through the usual “evil whatnot found and must be destroyed through horrendous suffering” plot. Alecs more and more bemused reactions to his teachers desperate attempts not to show his growing love are somewhat amusing, but not as much as you would think.
This is a shameless fantasy, with no intention of pretending to reality or even realism (people who have just been tortured for a couple of days just shake that of and walk away once they’re freed). But I can live with that, no problem. Unfortunately the plot is really drab and uninteresting. The bad guys are really bad – they’re necromancers, so of course they’re evil. (Wouldn’t it be nice with a necromancer hero? After all, it must be a lot better using already dead bodies in war than fresh and living ones, right? Right? Then again, Abhorrsen is a good necromancer... And I suppose there are ‘good’ necromancers in the Death Gate cycle as well...fine! The idea was as fresh as a week old corpse.) Good guys are really good - or at least their burglary and thieving is explained away; it can’t be bad since their on the good side, right? and the only new fresh and exciting part is the ‘Brokeback Fantasy’ theme (nothing explicit, don’t worry ;o) and even that is barely enough to keep up interest. After all, slash has been done before and oh so much better in, for example, Poppy. Z. Brites novels, or Ann Rice, or Robin Hobb or indeed Steven Erikson.
All in all, a nice little read on a rainy autumn evening but not much more.
And yes, I can spot the innuendo in the title “Luck in the shadows” as well as anyone, thank you, but a lady does not speak of such matters.

Book quote: I’ve seen him go through fire, swordfights, magic and two feet worth of shit without complaining, but deny him a hot bath at the end of it, and he fusses like a kept whore.

Innkeeper's Song

av Peter S Beagle

det här kan mycket väl vara en av de bästa böcker jag läst! inte på grund av storyn (som iof är bra) - det är språket och sättet att berätta som formligen förtrollar mig. det flödar som poesi över sidorna och jag önskar att jag själv hade sådan känsla för ord som den här mannen har. han använder också ett väldigt ovanligt sätt att berätta historien på; de olika kapitlen berättas av olika människor. historien flödar fram bit för bit ur olika människors synvinkel, ibland berättar värdshusvärden, ibland stallpojken, etc. inte som brukligt att man får se samma bit av historien ur olika människors ögon, nej här för varje berättare historien vidare där föregående slutade, fast ur ett nytt perspektiv. en bra historia är det också. när den är slut efterlämnar den en känsla av magi i kroppen. om det inte hade varit ett sådant starkt ord hade jag sagt att det är en genialisk bok - men då har jag ju inget sådant starkt ord att använda om jag stöter på något bättre... ;-)
och nu till bokens handling! i ett nötskal (oroa er inte, denna är från sidan 1 och är den enda 'riktiga' poesin i hela boken):

"There came three ladies at sundown:
one was brown as bread is brown,
one was black, with a sailor's sway,
and one was pale as the moon by day.

The white one wore an emerald ring,
the brown led a fox on a silver string,
and the black one carried a rosewood cane
with a sword inside, for a saw it plain.

They took my own room, they barred the door,
they sang songs I never had heard before.
My cheese and mutton they did destroy,
and they called for wine, and the stable boy.

And once they quarried and twice they cried-
Their laughter blazed through the countryside,
The ceiling shook and the plaster flew,
and the fox ate my pigeons, all but two.

They rode away with the morning sun,
the white like a queen, the black like a nun,
and the brown one singing with scarlet joy,
and I'll have to get a new stable boy."

betyg: 5!