Where Grandma and Grandpa Crack Me Up

Remember Me by Mary Balogh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a very good book. IMO. All five stars.

As a reader, coming from the Jane Austen universe, I've always liked a Regency setting, which makes this author and series a draw for me. I didn't understand any of it when I read Pride and Prejudice in college--but that was a while ago, and now it makes a lot more sense to me. I also like how these novels are clustered in "series," though they're more related than consecutive. (Which is fine, either way.) That means the reader already has an idea of characters and backgrounds going into the novel, making the early parts smoother and more entertaining. I feel the same way about big series, like Star Trek books, or Doc Savage, or popular characters like Sherlock Holmes, where you're familiar with the people and background so you can pick up the book and be into the story very quickly. It lowers barriers to enjoying the novel. And the way Mary Balogh writes several books about a single family, you have the same advantage here--many of the same characters show up in multiple books.

I especially find that a help when I'm trying to remember the names of the characters, who is related to whom, and where we know "Aunt Kitty" from. I have often made charts for myself (and taught students to do the same) because I am crap at names in books and real life. And TBH, the author OFTEN throws a whole paragraph of names at the reader in a way I can't absorb all at once--but spread across several books, I work it out. It's a brain saver.

Speaking of the book on its own--it's really good. This is a satisfying story with a lot of sympathetic characters and human moments. The FMC and MMC are likable from the start, but so are most of their relatives and extended families. The main characters are flawed, sure; they're damaged, for certain. But they're good people, and it's easy to root for them. What I found very curious is how the two had a genuine issue separating them, a moment in their past when Lucas accidentally insulted Philippa in her hearing. What he said was horrible, particularly for that era, but it was out of character for him, being spoken in anger, and we learn [spoiler of a general nature]....................... that he had good reason to be angry--just not at her. Anyway, it's a wall between them, when they should have been perfect for each other. The curious part is how his grandfather, acting like a matchmaker or fairy godfather, pushes at them to break down that wall. He's relentless, and kinda selfish because he wants his heir to marry and make another generation of heirs, but he's also sympathetic and pretty funny. His wife is cool, too. But the point is--still spoiling a bit--his meddling is an actual help.

(He's like the anti-Lady Catherine de Bourgh, whose opposition and meddling did more to drive Elizabeth and Darcy together than almost anything else. He meddles on the side of the angels.)

And the final ending (you see, there is a sort of ending, then a bigger ending, then a final ending...) is touching and sweet, and though the novel has its obligatory HEA, a very satisfying one, there is also a sad, sweet, lovely ending after that.

I found this both fun to read and emotionally satisfying--a love story as well as a family story. Recommended for just about any reader.

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Two Curses and a Lie

Euripides: Hippolytus by Sophie Mills
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you maybe want to read this, don't be discouraged from that. It's a pretty fast, fairly entertaining read. But it's not super fun is all.

The gods are such jerks. Hippolytus loves hunting, so he loves Artemis way more than Aphrodite. He's a bit negative towards women, so that's on him, but his attitude annoys Aphrodite, making her ruin his life. She makes his stepmother, Phaedra, fall in love with him. She lets a servant in on her shameful secret, and the servant tries to get Hippolytus to oblige her. He says no way. Phaedra is so ashamed she hangs herself, but writes a note blaming her stepson, alleging an assault that never happened.

His dad, Theseus, believes her lie and banishes his son, cursing him at the same time. (He had a curse ready because his dad was Poseidon, who granted him three such curses.) Theseus crashes his chariot, is brought home dying, and now, finally, Artemis comes to tell Theseus that he shouldn't have believed his wife's note. He apologizes to his son before he dies, and vows to get revenge on anyone Aphrodite loves.

A cheery crowd-pleaser. :)

So the gods stir up trouble and the people suffer. I don't enjoy that kind of story a bunch, tbh. But I still kind of liked it, because it's at least interesting in a "Wow! This is what they believed" kinda way.

3 stars.

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Where Bolan Hunts for Treasure

Ambush on Blood River by Don Pendleton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(4 stars ranked on the pulp fiction scale, that is.)

This is a pretty good Mack Bolan novel. I liked his fights against the mafia more than his later books, fighting against terrorists and assorted bad guys, for reasons I'm still musing on. But this is pretty good, too. I was leaning toward a lower score, but the last two chapters jumped up, with a final act that wouldn't be out of place in a decent action movie.

A man convinces Bolan that sensitive papers, originally stored in a safe deposit box, were accidentally stolen along with a lot of treasure, then hidden and abandoned for years somewhere in the Congo. They needed to be located and removed, with the stolen gold and silver as well, before a local warlord found it. The papers contained some US secrets that could be damaging if exposed, making the matter significant enough that Bolan would take it on.

Though it's quickly-written pulp fiction, the kind that demands lots of action and not a ton of research, the author (journalist Alan Bomack, writing under the collective pseudonym of Don Pendleton) demonstrates a decent command of the facts regarding the history and status of countries in that part of Africa in the 1980s, especially the intervention of the US and other countries in government and business, as well as providing a convincing description of settings and local conditions. This type of novel doesn't usually demand much verisimilitude beyond the proper description of guns and explosives; it seems like his pride demanded a little more.

It's still an action novel, meant just to entertain with a fast-paced plot, and though it lags a bit in the middle I think it works well overall. And at about 60K words, it doesn't overstay its welcome. I feel like the modern publishing universe could use a lot more books in the 160-200 page range, which seemed much more common in the 70s and 80s. It takes a lot of energy to commit to 800-page books. :)

This is a somewhat better than average example of the genre. Recommended for readers who are looking for that.

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Where Machiavelli Freaks You Out

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Like most people, probably, I read parts of this in school at different times. I decided I should look at the whole thing instead of just bits, and I would say there are small rewards for taking the time to do it. Not enough for most readers, but you might want to.

It's not all that long, anyway.

Obviously, this whole essay-style writing is very Machiavellian, making it generally good advice only for people without scruples. It's not about being a moral person. It's entirely advice on how to keep yourself in power once you arrive there, and it is so practical that is also often deeply unethical and unprincipled, even straight up evil. The good of the people is not considered, because the people are not his audience, and a prince would only care about the people to the extent that it mattered to his continued success in controlling his princedom.

To understand how the author thought, the reader should conceive of the people in Machiavelli's writings the same way we would normally consider animals on a farm. They are possessions or tools, a means to an end, a way to be wealthy and powerful. Their good only enters into the equation when or if it supports the prince and helps him maintain control over his lands.

"A prince wishing to keep his state," he writes, "is very often forced to do evil." (Isn't that the kind of thing sociopaths say? You forced me--I didn't want to do that.) Sure, make them love you if you can so that they cooperate with you, so they don't rise up, but don't hesitate to destroy enemies and malcontents in a way that terrifies others. He also says that the prince "cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being often forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to fidelity, friendship, humanity, and religion." That's pretty bad, doncha think? He has practical advice on how to do this, and in the abstract it sounds like advice on weeding your garden, but when you think about it any deeper it is beyond disturbing.

He didn't care. He wasn't writing for you or me.

What I was most surprised to realize was that he was very well informed and educated, more than I thought. He uses examples from the history of Rome, ancient Greece and Persia, and all of Europe at different stages of history. He knows historical details about campaigns and leadership styles and a lot more, giving his arguments a pretty good basis in fact. The style, though, is kinda goofy. It's all written like a flowchart: "you could take power this way or that way; if the first, you might do a or b; if the second, c or d; if you want to achieve X, you can do Y or Z; if Y, this or that might happen..." It feels like a simplistic view of personality and causality and possibility, as if everything breaks into two or three simple categories, each with its corresponding series of action that will lead to success. However, I like this for one reason: he is pushing back against the medieval/Renaissance belief in fate, the wheel of fate, the way people are brought up and then cast down and there's nothing you can do to alter that. He thinks you can act to decide your fate, and I prefer that as a philosophy.

Near the end, he addresses the practicality of that belief in the face of reality, where unforeseen events can change history. He admits that there are forces beyond our control, but fate or fortune isn't wholly in charge. He says, "I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less." He talks about a flooding river that can carry everything away despite anything we do, but argues that we can prepare for floods and mitigate their harm the next time. Not bad advice.

As much as anything, I found it interesting to see how people thought 500 years ago. The Prince isn't terribly amusing on its own, just for pleasure reading, but his first-person essay and advice does answer some questions about our ancestors and the way they saw the world. And it reminds a modern person why we want to limit the power of elected officials and others. Don't give them the chance to put Machiavelli into practice.

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Where Warwick Makes the Kings

The last of the barons by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an amazing book. Definitely 5 stars.

Bulwer-Lytton tells the story here of Richard Nevile, the Kingmaker, known better as Earl Warwick, and his support for King Edward that turned to rebellion against him. There's a huge cast, including the king and his family, Warwick's family and many relatives, the deposed King Henry's family and allies in France, along with many named servants, middle-class merchants, peasants, soldiers, and so on. The most sympathetic characters for me were a poor young woman of noble blood, Sybil, and her scholarly father, along with a goldsmith relative of Warwick's who fell in love with the young woman. Another Nevile in the story is Sir Marmaduke, a rustic warrior who becomes a stalwart defender of Warwick, his relative, and though he's sometimes a figure of fun, he eventually makes himself a hero. (He reminds me of the Sir Duncan character in the Game of Thrones spinoff called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms--honest but dumb. Same guy.) But the bigger story is how Warwick worked to uphold Edward IV's reign until the king dishonored his daughter, turning Warwick against him, leading to the back-and-forth of kings and supporters of York and Lancaster that marked the midpoint in the War of the Roses.

(The ending comes later, about 15 years after the novel, with Edward's brother Richard, known before as Gloucester, and the last of the York lineage falling to the Tudors.)

The prose here is dense, more elevated and complex even than Sir Walter Scott (who I also love), and many years ago I would have passed on this book, but if you can get into the rhythm of this kind of 19th century storytelling, it's great. Here's a typical passage, where a leading rebel from the peasant class lays out the complaints against the government of Edward of York:

With clear precision, in indignant, but not declamatory eloquence, he painted the disorders of the time: the insolent exactions of the hospitals and abbeys; the lawless violence of each petty baron; the weakness of the royal authority in restraining oppression; its terrible power in aiding the oppressor. He accumulated instance on instance of misrule; he showed the insecurity of property; the adulteration of the coin; the burden of the imposts; he spoke of wives and maidens violated; of industry defrauded; of houses forcibly entered; of barns and granaries despoiled; of the impunity of all offenders, if high-born; of the punishment of all complaints, if poor and lowly.

This passage also clarifies one of the major themes of the book, which is that the people suffered under unchecked barons, and they hoped that a more centralized government under a stronger monarchy would rein them in. (It was a pretty dream.) In places, the tone is lighter, even playful, and in others we see characters speaking in the courtly language of the time, with knights trying to win fair ladies or courtiers trying to influence the king. But there's also a lot of direct action, including battle but not exclusively so, forcibly rendered. The last 10% of the book is Edward's campaign to take back his kingdom, which ends with a long, vivid description of the Battle of Barnet in 1471, when the Kingmaker, Warwick, and his brother, Montagu, are both killed, ending the rebellion. (Sorry! Spoilers!)

Bulwer-Lytton famously started another novel with the words "It was a dark and stormy night." That language has made him an object of fun, but anyone who read this book--with it's excellent research, scholarly footnotes, and brilliant plotting over the length of about 250,000 words--would maybe reconsider their opinion.

I loved it. Fantastic historical novel. Recommended.

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Where Bruno Can't Be Left in Peace on his Private Planet

The Collapsium by Wil McCarthy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a clever and entertaining SF novel. 4 stars.

The science is hard, or where it isn't really, it looks like it is, because it's realistic-sounding for a non-scientist. (Me thinking: is that how that would work? That would erase inertia? Why wouldn't everything crash together? I don't get it. I guess that's possible...) :) Lots of really big ideas here about how to use mini-black holes in a matrix to achieve pretty much anything you can imagine.

The characters are interesting and, in places, surprisingly well-developed, though the book has a very narrow cast of characters. That made it feel a little underbaked, but also makes it read in a very breezy way, so I guess I prefer it to novels that are overwritten and too long. It's episodic, and really is constructed like three short stories (or two short stories and a novella) stitched together. In each episode, our heroic and brilliant main character is called in when a partially-built invention is being sabotaged in a way that would imperil the sun itself, meaning that he has to solve the problem quickly or humanity is doomed. That's fun. And thematically, that is a very traditional SF kind of story, where we look at the tension between the wonder of new technologies and the damage they might or do cause. He makes it work.

The pacing is great, and the story is cool, but I found the tone a little odd. Some readers talk about how witty and funny it is, but it just seemed a bit off-kilter to me. I love humorous SF, like John Scalzi, but this hit more like a work of pulp fiction or a comic book in tone. That's okay; I like those things. I found it strangely whimsical, I guess, except where it took on a serious tone.

YMMV.

So--pretty fun to read, and successful enough overall to encourage me seek out other books by the author. Nice.

Sure, recommended.

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Where Edward III Has Some Folks to Fight

King Edward III by William Shakespeare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hey, this was a good read. (No pun intended.) Elizabethan plays can be tough, but this was not that bad, and very entertaining. I liked it. 5 stars.

It's one of those "Did Shakespeare write this?" plays that has more recently been a "How much of this did Shakespeare write?" play. Something like half, maybe. Hard to tell at this point. But in my head, and according to educated critics who have used a lot of methods to analyze the language and style, this is essentially a Shakespeare play. With assistants.

Being a history, the play is pretty episodic. It starts with Edward putting down a rebellion on the Scottish border, where he pressures a beautiful countess to sleep with him until she shames him enough he apologizes. Then, we pass to France, where he is pushing his claim to the throne. There are a couple battles--Crécy and Poitiers--where his son the prince survives and succeeds against great odds a couple times. He takes Calais [historical spoilers!], where he really wants to commit some atrocities but gets talked out of it. The captured French king is brought to him as they enter the city.

I found it fun to read and imagine it would be pretty great to watch. It's too bad it mocks Scottish people in the beginning, because that made it unpopular when James I became king a few years after it was written and first performed.

As history, this has flaws. Events are moved around and historical figures invented. Some of it's true, but it isn't very accurate. And some critics say it isn't up to Shakespeare's standards (for reasons that don't trouble me). But it is a play meant for spectacle, for patriotic fervor, for emotional reveals (like when the prince survives one more tough spot, even though the people already know he survives) and that would make it a high-energy play to see. It's very dramatic.

Seriously--go to school or read a history book for history. Go to the theater for drama. And this is good drama--IMO, always.

Recommended.

Oh--the notes and helps in the front and back of the Melchiori edition from Cambridge are very good. That's a bonus.

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