No, I know, but on Wednesday we were traveling from Aachen back to Oxford, with a stop for some tourism in Brussels. All perfectly straightforward until some kind of typical Paddington chaos caused a mass cancellation of trains and a complication of the penultimate leg of the trip. At least we got home in time to see The Goal.

But I have been reading and am in the middle of two books.

Fiction: Jack the Bodiless, Julian May. This is the first book in May's less-good second series which is a prequel to her first, but I read the whole trilogy in a rush when it came out and recently thought it would be interesting to revisit it. I vaguely remembered it as set in a semi-dystopia but also that the rebellion against the system was very clearly in the wrong, and I also vaguely remembered that May is an author whose weird complexes about sex and Catholicism are on display at all times. The second thing is very true -- I am obviously not a Catholic but I think this is a strongly Catholic book but in a weird fringe way as opposed to a how Catholicism normally operates way (unlike, say, Russel's The Sparrow which is also very Catholic but in a different way; for one thing in May everybody else thinks Catholicism is great.) And May has some strong ideas about sex and reproduction, that is for sure; I had forgotten her thing about incest, but that is also present here. May's incest-and-reproduction thing in a nutshell: character learns that they and their sexual partner have fewer than the recommended number of grandparents between them, and respond by insisting that at least those grandparents were genetically superior so it's really important for them to have children. Really. I do like these books but they are so bizarre and sketchy.

The setting is... I guess I'd say its a utopia with dystopian features? Some of the complaints the rebels have are reasonable to my eye but a lot of them are just humans being cranky and paranoid and over-ambitious; the book hasn't actually engaged with the parts of the system that seemed really dystopian to me (like assigning colonies based on "ethnic dynamism," whatever that is supposed to be.) Maybe it will do so in the later books? But I also think that there is a huge gap between what May thought she was doing in these books and what I think she's doing, so who knows?

Nonfiction: How the World Made the West, by Josephine Crawley Quinn. So far I'm still firmly in material that I already know a lot about (it's the 7th century BCE and things are great if you're an Assyrian) but my observations at this point is that this is an excellent book and I recommend it highly. It's engagingly written and erudite at the same time -- Quinn never simplifies the evidence but her presentation of it is always clear. This is still Mediterranean history, at least as far as I've got, but Quinn puts the Phoenicians in the central place where they belong, and reminds the reader throughout that the ancient world was a world of connections, not isolated cultures. I am never certain whether it's common knowledge that the Phoenicians were involved in lots of the things we give the Greeks credit for "inventing", but that is very much the case. So my impression that the "civilisational theory" that Quinn is arguing against is kind of a straw man may be mistaken.

As always, there are details of Quinn's interpretation that I don't agree with but overall I think this is a really stunning work of history, pulling together a lot of different threads into a lively and coherent narrative and showing how all the details she brings in matter and contribute to the whole. I hope I keep enjoying it as the narrative moves forward; it also makes me want to read her history of the Phoenicians. [obligatory disclaimer, I guess, that I have chatted with the author.]

Hey! It's Wednesday!

I actually meant to write about this book last week, or even the week before. I picked it up as part of a birthday present along with some other books.

I felt much less divided in my thoughts about this book as opposed the the second in the series: I felt much more secure as a reader that this was a... I'm not sure of the precise generic term, really. It's a book about a woman overcoming some kind of difficulty and finding happiness, with an element of romance. So for Amara, that difficulty is her present and past as a slave, but it isn't a book about slavery, or the experience of slavery, except insofar as her experience of slavery creates the internal obstacles Amara has to overcome in order to achieve her own happiness. (She does, of course, with the help of Mount Vesuvius.)

Someday someone will write a historical novel which is really about slavery in the classical world, and I'll probably nitpick that to death too. This isn't that book, but it was an enjoyable book anyway. One day someone will also write a book in which Domitian is perfectly nice, at least as a younger man -- this is also not that book. That book, I will do my best not to nitpick.

( more below )

All in all, though, this was a satisfying conclusion for the character. But I really do want the revisionist novel about Domitian someday.

Obviously I have not read everything in the collection, but here are some things I have read and enjoyed. Below the cut are recs in: Crusader Kings 3, For All Mankind, Detectorists, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and Casablanca. ( click here )

As I keep reading, there may be another set of recs.

I just saw, in pauraque's journal, the very sad news that rozarka today succumbed to her cancer. It's an indescribable loss. I've known her since XF fandom, and she was such a wonderful, generous, sympathetic person as well as a talented author.

I don't really know what else to say: may her memory be for a blessing. But right now it just feels like ash in my mouth.

So I have discovered that Babylon 5 is available to me on Tubi (with ad breaks) and since it has been on my list of shows to rewatch I decided to start it. I don't think I've seen it since the original broadcast and I am fairly sure I missed a number of episodes the first time around. In fact I waas not sure whether or not I had seen any of the first season, because my memories of Sinclair are extremely vague.

Episode 0: I definitely had never seen this before! I assume it was some kind of pilot? Anyway, it was OK -- I guess it laid a lot of groundwork, but it certainly suffered from a lack of Ivanova.

Actual Episode 1 (Midnight on the Firing Line): This was a really strong episode, on the other hand, and I liked how it set up a the relationship between Londo and G'Kar, and foreshadowed its ending. I also appreciated the work it put in to establishing the tension between Susan and Talia. And somehow, this episode is always relevant. Sadly. 10/10 on the Londo scale, though.

Ep 2 (Soul Hunter): Stranger comes to B5, stuff happens. My memory is that this was a pretty frequent type of episode (see also ep 4) but I guess we see some set-up for the Mystery of Sincair and the Mimbari. I did kind of lose intrrest partway through this one.

Ep 3 (Born to the Purple): This was the first episode I had any real memory of, and confirmed that I had watched at least some of season 1 -- I had certainly seen the parts with Ivanova and her father. I can only assume that I had also seen the rest of the episode. What I liked best about this episode was actually the minor character stuff, like G'Kar's incredibly pissed-off new assistant, and everything with Vir.

Ep 4 (the Infection): Yet again, a stranger comes to B5 and stuff happens, although this time it's David McCalum and some other guy. This was the first episode I actually liked Garibaldi in: the final scene between him and Sinclair, when he confronts him about his risk-taking, was so well done. Spartacus watched this one and didn't give up partway through so I may see if he wants to watch more of the show with me.

Overall, I am enjoying the rewatch, although I wonder whether the pattern of even-numbered episodes being better than odd-numbered ones will continue. It's not quite as clunky as I had osmosed, and although I feel like the writing is sometimes awkward, the episodes do still feel very relevant. I do really love the Centauri, who are still somewhat ridiculous at this stage, but also just a little creepy; I feel like the Mimbari and Narn are less well-established at this stage. I do like how sketchy the Mimbari seem, though.

Ivanova remains wonderful. I am pretty sure the first time around I was mostly watching for her, and I don't think that was a bad decision on my part.

Oh hey, it's Wednesday, and I have a working laptop again! And I read a book about which I have something to say (apparently, a lot to say.)

This was The House with the Golden Door, by Elodie Harper, the sequel to The Wolf Den, which I wrote about here. I need to tell you all up front that I did actually like this book, because I am about to complain about it a lot, mostly for not being the book I wanted it to be. What I wanted (and at one early point in the narrative, thought I was getting) was a book about Amara's trauma and her difficultly in accepting and understanding her new status as a freedwoman, and the way in which that trauma and that difficulty lead her to make increasingly poor decisions. What I got was a book about her romance with an enslaved man. What I don't like is that I'm not sure which of these two books Harper thought she was writing.

I can kind of see the outline of the book I wanted here, particularly in the way Amara tries to recreate her lost friendship with Dido with Victoria and Britannica, in her inability to extricate herself from her relationship (whatever it is) with Felix, and in the ambiguity of her relationship with Rufus, who tries his best to keep her dependent on him. And of course most of all in her pervasive fear that she will be re-enslaved.

( and here I digress about Roman law, and the weird way this is all set up in the book )

OK, that was a ridiculously long digression about why that element of the narrative failed to land as well as it could have, for me as a reader.

The other issue I had is that, the more the love affair takes over, the less interesting Amara is as a protagonist. All the other characters seem to have a lot more going on, most of which Amara is totally ignorant of, because she is totally wrapped up in her own concerns. And I get that the surprise of what Victoria has been up to has to be held back, but I don't see why we couldn't have more of Britannica or Martha's stories foregrounded in the text. Amara's lack of interest in the other women in her life -- at least, the ones who are of lower status than her -- turns out to be her undoing. But is that what Harper intended to write? I'm just not sure, because elsewhere in the text Amara seems to be untouched by her own decisions: she doesn't seem to see herself as doing anything dubious in her money-lending business even though she sees clearly the problems when Felix does the same thing. I do think that Harper did intend to write a story in which Amara's character flaws are foregrounded, but it doesn't quite come together for me.

( again a cut for surely the least intentional subtext of all time )

I think as I write all this up I am almost arguing myself around to seeing Amara as the antiheroine I almost thought she was. I am certainly interested to see what will happen to her in the next book, given that she is going to Rome as the companion of an imperial freedman: will that affect the way she sees herself as a free person? The way she treats other freed and enslaved people? Or will there be more love story and a torrid reunion as Vesuvius does its thing in the background and Pompeii burns? I did in fact like the book well enough to want to read the next one to find out.

Congratulations to me, I have just crossed a task off my to-do list which has been hanging over me for months. Unfortunately it is the kind of task which is going to result in a whole set of other tasks springing up where it used to be, but in the meantime, let me update this thing.

Before we left the UK we had a month of Paramount+, which in the UK does not seem to have Lower Decks, but did have Strange New Worlds, so we watched the first season of that with Spartacus. I really enjoyed it! I do like the long plot arcs on Discovery, but this felt cheerful and episodic, and it was nice to see the new takes on the familiar old characters. I particularly like the new Chapel, although I keep expecting her hair to be a slightly different shade, and La'an and of course Uhura, and Number One is great. In fact I am delighted to have so many female characters I like, and who have a lot of time spent on them, in a Star Trek series! And I like all the call-backs to old Star Trek plots, like talking at your enemies until they give up and agree to make peace, or dealing with immature god-tier beings (Spartacus kept saying, "what I am even watching?" and we kept telling him, "this is just what Star Trek used to be like, OK? this kind of thing happens all the time on the Enterprise.") Or suddenly finding out that the Romulans look a lot like Vulcans.

I also am enjoying Spock's ill-fated betrothal. With body-swapping! and Stonn! I feel like the actor is more convincingly Spock-like in this than in Discovery, but it may be the type of narrative, or the lack of facial hair. But every now and then I feel like the Nimoy pastiche really works.

We also watched (without Spartacus) both seasons of Yellowjackets. It was too gorey for me, and just on the edge of being too scary, so I watched a lot of it through my fingers, but I did really enjoy it. It captures a lot of the horror of being a teenage girl, just with explicit murder and cannibalism instead of metaphorical. Also Shauna is what I think used to be called my perfect little cinnamon roll who can do no wrong, except for the fact that LITERALLY EVERYTHING SHE DOES IS WRONG. She is the worst, and I love her. She is even worse than Misty, and that's saying something, because Misty is absolutely terrible, and I love her almost as much.

One thing I like about the show is the way the supernatural element is left ambiguous. There's something there, probably, but also, they are doing all this too themselves. They didn't just bring whatever it is back with them: they brought it there with them, too.

Meanwhile, Spartacus watched all the Harry Potter movies, which he had never seen, and reread the books, which he read years ago and didn't care about, and is now really interested in them. I am pretending to know a lot less about Harry Potter (and especially about Harry Potter fanfiction) than I actually do. Although I think most of what he engages with are video essays about the books? It is all very strange to me, but he seems to be enjoying it.

So what have I been reading? Other than the news, that is.

I am currently reading some early Tony Hillerman books which we have lying around the house -- I have finished Listening Woman, The Blessing Way and People of Darkness. Right now I'm reading Dance Hall of the Dead, but I've reached the point where I was getting really worried about the characters so I put it down last night and picked up The Dark Wind instead. It's probably been 30 years since I read anything by Hillerman, and I'm enjoying them. He's so good at evoking a very different place and culture, explaining and describing for an audience foreign to that place and culture. We still have four or five more of them on the shelf so I think I'll keep going.

I also watched the first episode of Dark Winds, which made some confusing changes, especially around Chee's immediate backstory -- and I was a little confused because the opener said it was 1971 but it didn't feel like 1971 in the show itself. Clearly the people behind it made some reasonable changes too, though -- especially filling in some details and providing a better range of female characters -- and I will at least give the other episodes a try whenever I get around to subscribing to AMC+ or whatever service it is.

At the same time as I read The Blessing Way I was also reading Provenance, by Ann Leckie, which was a very interesting contrast during the time that I thought Provenance would be a murder mystery -- which it sort of is and sort of isn't, because the murder isn't a mystery. I did like it, and better than I remember liking the last of the Ancillary novels -- because I didn't come into it with a lot of expectations about what kind of story it was.

And also: hello everyone! I still need to do a "real life" update and catch up on a bunch of comments etc.

So I had a whole post written about how glad I was not to be home for all the brou-ha-ha surrounding the queen's death, and frankly with inflation and energy prices as they are it seems like a good winter not to be in the UK as well. (Not a great time to be away given the currency collapse but you can't have everything...)

But now we have Chaos! With Liz Truss! And now more chaos! Without Liz Truss! It's funny from this distance, if nothing else. The lettuce actually did outlast her.

At least A is going back next month, so if there is a general election (and there should be, because that's what you do when the government can't govern, but then again I can't see the Tories choosing to call an election if there's any way out) I can give him my proxy vote.

There is a lot of stuff going on at this end, and someday I will post about it.

On Sunday I went to my first ever baseball game. (It was also A and Spartacus' first ever baseball game, but that is perhaps less surprising with the whole living in England thing.) We sat up in the nosebleed seats and it was great! Our team even won, which given their record this season was not the most likely outcome.

You may wonder how I have lived so long without ever attending a baseball game, so I will tell you: both of my parents are from Brooklyn, and my father was a Dodgers fan. He never forgave them for moving to LA, and in fact never watched a baseball game after they did so. My dad was a champion grudge holder. Baseball was never on TV when I was growing up, never on the radio, and almost never acknowledged as a real sport that existed in the real world, except to be polite to some of our friends who were big fans. (Does the intense relationship of Brooklynites from the 30s and 40s to the Dodgers show up in Steve/Bucky fic? I know that if someone had suggested to my dad that he could support one of the remaining New York teams he would not have taken it kindly, but see just above about his grudges.)

In other news, we have some free Apple+ and are working our way through For All Mankind, which I like so far (we're most of the way through S2 -- the marines on the moon have, in a development no one could possibly have foreseen, shot two cosmonauts.) And we have renewed our Disney+ subscription, so we have a lot of catching up to do. We're starting with the Obi-Wan Kenobi show, and I guess then might go on to some of the Marvel shows that started after we let the subscription lapse last time.

Also, I had a very happy and successful crossworks exchange! I received something I had been sure I would never get -- a 12 Monkeys/HL crossover! History Unfolded, by Tarlan mixes the two fandoms together perfectly, and I really loved the Methos characterisation in it.

I also wrote something, The Shining Air, a crossover between Mansfield Park and the Master and Commander movie. It was a lot of fun to write, and I basically convinced myself as I wrote it that Fanny/Tom Pullings is a great ship, but it also meant that I have not been able to mention anything I've been reading for the last month or so, since that has basically been (a) Mansfield Park and (b) pretty much the entire Aubrey-Maturin series, and I didn't want to tip my hand! I tried not to root it too firmly in the book universe but I needed at least some background detail, especially because the movie is so visually strong, but I was writing a story and needed some words.