by Timothy Zahn.
Shortly after the destruction of the Death Star at Yavin, Han Solo hears about a job with a payoff so spectacular it would not only allow him to settle his debt to Jabba the Hutt but also set him and Chewbacca up for a very comfortable retirement. The trouble is that it's a job that calls for a number of highly specialized skills that neither Han nor Chewie possess. So Han sets about putting together a team of specialists.
Star Wars meets Ocean's Eleven: how can you go wrong with that concept? When it's written by the man who launched the Star Wars Expanded Universe novels twenty years ago, you can't go wrong, really. I haven't been keeping up with the EU at all, but Zahn makes it pretty easy to follow the threads that tie into other novels that I haven't read.
Among all the online rumors and speculation about the upcoming Star Wars movies, a number of people have pointed out that the producers of such sequels could do a lot worse than to look to Timothy Zahn's novels for inspiration, and I have to concur. It's not likely they will, but we can dream, right?
Friday, January 25, 2013
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Sister Queens
By Julia Fox. The subtitle says it all: The Noble, Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile.
Katherine and Juana were both daughters of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. Katherine became a Queen Consort as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England, but failed to give him the male heir he required and became embroiled in divorce proceedings that shook the foundations of the Catholic Church. Her sister Juana, like their mother before her, was Queen of Castile in her own right, but faced terrible opposition and power grabs from her husband, her father, and finally her own son, all of whose efforts succeeded in naming her for posterity as Juana the Mad.
English history is a favorite subject of mine, and though the Tudor period isn't my preferred time to read about, I've managed to pick up quite a bit about Katherine of Aragon: how she was married to Prince Arthur before he died young, how her parents' reluctance to pay her dowry complicated her life while she was waiting to marry Arthur's brother Henry, how she sewed her husband's shirts with her own hands even after he took up with Anne Boleyn. Up to now, though, I don't think I could have told you more about her sister than the derogatory nickname she has carried through the centuries. I heard of Juana la Loca at some point during my high school Spanish classes lo, these many moons ago, but I don't think I knew that she was the daughter of Isabella, the sister of Katherine, or the mother of the Emperor Charles who played an influential part in Katherine's fight to preserve her marriage.
I certainly had no reason up to now to doubt that Juana was genuinely deranged; what I'd heard was the stories about how she refused to allow her late husband's body to be buried, keeping his corpse nearby. I don't think I ever heard about the background of Spanish and European politics that made it extremely convenient for the men in her life to make out that she was too unbalanced to rule, even though people who interacted with her throughout her long enforced seclusion were apparently able to hold perfectly normal, rational conversations with her.
Very informative book. I'll have to look up the author's previous work on Jane Boleyn, the sister-in-law who denounced Anne.
Katherine and Juana were both daughters of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. Katherine became a Queen Consort as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England, but failed to give him the male heir he required and became embroiled in divorce proceedings that shook the foundations of the Catholic Church. Her sister Juana, like their mother before her, was Queen of Castile in her own right, but faced terrible opposition and power grabs from her husband, her father, and finally her own son, all of whose efforts succeeded in naming her for posterity as Juana the Mad.
English history is a favorite subject of mine, and though the Tudor period isn't my preferred time to read about, I've managed to pick up quite a bit about Katherine of Aragon: how she was married to Prince Arthur before he died young, how her parents' reluctance to pay her dowry complicated her life while she was waiting to marry Arthur's brother Henry, how she sewed her husband's shirts with her own hands even after he took up with Anne Boleyn. Up to now, though, I don't think I could have told you more about her sister than the derogatory nickname she has carried through the centuries. I heard of Juana la Loca at some point during my high school Spanish classes lo, these many moons ago, but I don't think I knew that she was the daughter of Isabella, the sister of Katherine, or the mother of the Emperor Charles who played an influential part in Katherine's fight to preserve her marriage.
I certainly had no reason up to now to doubt that Juana was genuinely deranged; what I'd heard was the stories about how she refused to allow her late husband's body to be buried, keeping his corpse nearby. I don't think I ever heard about the background of Spanish and European politics that made it extremely convenient for the men in her life to make out that she was too unbalanced to rule, even though people who interacted with her throughout her long enforced seclusion were apparently able to hold perfectly normal, rational conversations with her.
Very informative book. I'll have to look up the author's previous work on Jane Boleyn, the sister-in-law who denounced Anne.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
reading challenge
The library where I work is sponsoring a 100-book challenge, with some little prizes and a recognition dinner for the winners at the end of the year. According to Shelfari, which helpfully provides a running total for me, I topped out at 82 for this past year, which is not too shabby. I'll probably give it a try. If I count graphic novels, which I don't normally log at Shelfari, I can probably make it.
Fans on our Facebook page have scoffed, "Only 100?" I have a feeling we may end up with more winners than the assistant director was counting on when she proposed this program.
Fans on our Facebook page have scoffed, "Only 100?" I have a feeling we may end up with more winners than the assistant director was counting on when she proposed this program.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Doctor Who: The Face of Evil (Story 89)
starring Tom Baker as the Doctor and Louise Jameson as Leela.
Aiming for Hyde Park, the Doctor (4th incarnation) unexpectedly lands in an alien jungle instead; being the Doctor, he decides to have a look round. Much to his astonishment, the local savages recognize him immediately as the Evil One who is holding their god, Xoanon, captive behind an impenetrable wall, and his protests that he doesn't remember imprisoning anybody and they must be mistaken seem pretty thin even to him once he sees his own face carved on a cliffside in the style of Mount Rushmore. With the help of Leela, a young woman who has been cast out of the tribe for speaking out against both her leader and the shaman who speaks for the god, the Doctor sets out to discover exactly who and what Xoanon is, and why he himself made such an impression the last time he visited this planet.
When my boyfriend decided that he'd enjoyed Paul enough to own a copy, he also went through Amazon looking for a Doctor Who story with Tom Baker to give me, partly because he'd enjoyed Shada as well (but chiefly, I think, so that he'd be buying enough to qualify for free shipping; Amazon has a lot of frivolous purchases to answer for with that policy). He'd already ordered this one when he asked me what I thought of it, and was vastly relieved when I told him that as the introduction of Leela it was a fondly remembered favorite.
I was pleased to see that the story held up really well, in spite of the admittedly cheesy no-budget sets and effects. The writing is very sharp; this is the source of one of my favorite lines from the whole series, when the Doctor points out to Leela, "The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: They don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering."
Tom Baker's Doctor is more imperious than I remembered, but Leela is still five kinds of awesome. What I didn't know when I first saw this story back in the 80s is that it was actually quite rare for the show at that time to present a story about the Doctor having to clean up the consequences of his own previous good intentions. His own assertions to the contrary (and he says it at least twice in episodes of this very serial), the Doctor doesn't always have all the answers. All in all, a very good story to show my boyfriend why I loved Doctor Who so much in high school!
Aiming for Hyde Park, the Doctor (4th incarnation) unexpectedly lands in an alien jungle instead; being the Doctor, he decides to have a look round. Much to his astonishment, the local savages recognize him immediately as the Evil One who is holding their god, Xoanon, captive behind an impenetrable wall, and his protests that he doesn't remember imprisoning anybody and they must be mistaken seem pretty thin even to him once he sees his own face carved on a cliffside in the style of Mount Rushmore. With the help of Leela, a young woman who has been cast out of the tribe for speaking out against both her leader and the shaman who speaks for the god, the Doctor sets out to discover exactly who and what Xoanon is, and why he himself made such an impression the last time he visited this planet.
When my boyfriend decided that he'd enjoyed Paul enough to own a copy, he also went through Amazon looking for a Doctor Who story with Tom Baker to give me, partly because he'd enjoyed Shada as well (but chiefly, I think, so that he'd be buying enough to qualify for free shipping; Amazon has a lot of frivolous purchases to answer for with that policy). He'd already ordered this one when he asked me what I thought of it, and was vastly relieved when I told him that as the introduction of Leela it was a fondly remembered favorite.
I was pleased to see that the story held up really well, in spite of the admittedly cheesy no-budget sets and effects. The writing is very sharp; this is the source of one of my favorite lines from the whole series, when the Doctor points out to Leela, "The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: They don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering."
Tom Baker's Doctor is more imperious than I remembered, but Leela is still five kinds of awesome. What I didn't know when I first saw this story back in the 80s is that it was actually quite rare for the show at that time to present a story about the Doctor having to clean up the consequences of his own previous good intentions. His own assertions to the contrary (and he says it at least twice in episodes of this very serial), the Doctor doesn't always have all the answers. All in all, a very good story to show my boyfriend why I loved Doctor Who so much in high school!
Friday, October 12, 2012
Paul (2011)
starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and the voice of Seth Rogen.
Clive and Graeme are best friends and artistic collaborators--Clive is a writer, Graeme an artist--who travel from their home in England to the San Diego Comic Con, and then set out to make the most of their trip to America by renting an RV and touring the famous UFO sites of the southwest, going by the Black Mailbox and Area 51 and finishing up at Roswell. This plan quickly goes awry as they witness a car wreck, only to find that the driver is a foul-mouthed, genre-savvy alien, who introduces himself as Paul and says he needs their help to get back to the spot where his spaceship originally crashed and where his people are due to pick him up.
Pegg and Frost wrote the movie as well as starring in it, and the geek references fly by thick and fast. Both Clive and Graeme are evidently fluent in Klingon--only Clive is shown to speak it, but when he gives Graeme an instruction in that language, Graeme promptly obeys. Star Wars, Aliens, E.T., The X-Files all get their shout-outs. For somebody who's seen all that stuff, this movie is hysterically funny. I'm not sure how well it would play for somebody who would miss all the references, but fortunately I'm not in that position.
Clive and Graeme are best friends and artistic collaborators--Clive is a writer, Graeme an artist--who travel from their home in England to the San Diego Comic Con, and then set out to make the most of their trip to America by renting an RV and touring the famous UFO sites of the southwest, going by the Black Mailbox and Area 51 and finishing up at Roswell. This plan quickly goes awry as they witness a car wreck, only to find that the driver is a foul-mouthed, genre-savvy alien, who introduces himself as Paul and says he needs their help to get back to the spot where his spaceship originally crashed and where his people are due to pick him up.
Pegg and Frost wrote the movie as well as starring in it, and the geek references fly by thick and fast. Both Clive and Graeme are evidently fluent in Klingon--only Clive is shown to speak it, but when he gives Graeme an instruction in that language, Graeme promptly obeys. Star Wars, Aliens, E.T., The X-Files all get their shout-outs. For somebody who's seen all that stuff, this movie is hysterically funny. I'm not sure how well it would play for somebody who would miss all the references, but fortunately I'm not in that position.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Everyday Witch Book of Rituals
Prominent Pagan author Deborah Blake adds another volume to her "Everyday Witch" series from Llewellyn Books with The Everyday Witch Book of Rituals: All You Need for a Magickal Year, offering ritual and spellwork suggestions for each New Moon and Full Moon in a calendar year as well as the eight Sabbats and selected special occasions such as Wiccaning (baby blessing) and handfastings (marriage/commitment ceremonies).
It doesn't really match the other books in the series, as the various occasions included are more or less by definition not something hat happen every day, but it is nonetheless an extremely useful manual for either solitary witches or groups; the introduction helpfully includes a section on "Adapting rituals from solitary to group and back again" for those who sometimes work in both modes. Also very useful is the advice for including non-Pagan guests, not only in family-oriented rituals like handfastings, but also for some of the full moons where the ritual theme is something that individuals of any spiritual path can apply to their own lives.
I'm not generally a fan of the conceit than an author's pet, or even her familiar, is a collaborator on a book, but the advice presented here by Magic the cat is mostly pretty straightforward and useful, and not nearly as twee as it could easily have been. The only other point I had any reservations about was the lack of a Blue Moon ritual, a relatively glaring omission given that we just had a Blue Moon this past August.
Overall, this book is highly recommended, easily up to the standard set by Blake's earlier Circle, Coven and Grove (a favorite of several Wiccans I know), and should prove every bit as useful a resource.
The publication date is October 8, 2012; thanks to Llewellyn Books and NetGalley.com for providing me with an electronic advance copy. This was my first book from NetGalley, but mostly likely not the last!
It doesn't really match the other books in the series, as the various occasions included are more or less by definition not something hat happen every day, but it is nonetheless an extremely useful manual for either solitary witches or groups; the introduction helpfully includes a section on "Adapting rituals from solitary to group and back again" for those who sometimes work in both modes. Also very useful is the advice for including non-Pagan guests, not only in family-oriented rituals like handfastings, but also for some of the full moons where the ritual theme is something that individuals of any spiritual path can apply to their own lives.
I'm not generally a fan of the conceit than an author's pet, or even her familiar, is a collaborator on a book, but the advice presented here by Magic the cat is mostly pretty straightforward and useful, and not nearly as twee as it could easily have been. The only other point I had any reservations about was the lack of a Blue Moon ritual, a relatively glaring omission given that we just had a Blue Moon this past August.
Overall, this book is highly recommended, easily up to the standard set by Blake's earlier Circle, Coven and Grove (a favorite of several Wiccans I know), and should prove every bit as useful a resource.
The publication date is October 8, 2012; thanks to Llewellyn Books and NetGalley.com for providing me with an electronic advance copy. This was my first book from NetGalley, but mostly likely not the last!
Saturday, September 22, 2012
In the Woods
by Tana French.
Rob Ryan and his partner Cassie Maddox, detectives on the Dublin Murder Squad, happen to catch the call when the body of a young girl is found at an archeological site near the suburb of Knocknaree. What no one else on the squad knows is that nearly thirty years earlier, Rob--then known by his first name, Adam--was the lone survivor of a mysterious incident in the woods by Knocknaree, in which his two best friends disappeared without a trace and Adam was found, mute and amnesiac, clinging to a tree with his shoes full of blood that wasn't his. Rob knows he ought to disclose all this to his captain and remove himself from the modern case, but the two incidents can't possibly be connected. Can they?
This was our book club selection for September, in a not entirely successful attempt to get away from the Gothic. Not everybody finished the book, which kind of put a lid on the discussion as we tried to avoid spoilers, both for the solution of the mystery and some of the personal developments of the characters. Those of us who did get to the end found it frustrating--is it too spoileriffic to say that while some questions are answered, some pretty big ones are not?
Still, the beginning was good enough that I kept going even when I started to suspect I wasn't going to like the end, the characters were psychologically interesting in a believable kind of way, and the description of the second book in the series sounded intriguing to a couple of us; I can see myself putting it on the List of Books I Want to Read Before I Die.
Rob Ryan and his partner Cassie Maddox, detectives on the Dublin Murder Squad, happen to catch the call when the body of a young girl is found at an archeological site near the suburb of Knocknaree. What no one else on the squad knows is that nearly thirty years earlier, Rob--then known by his first name, Adam--was the lone survivor of a mysterious incident in the woods by Knocknaree, in which his two best friends disappeared without a trace and Adam was found, mute and amnesiac, clinging to a tree with his shoes full of blood that wasn't his. Rob knows he ought to disclose all this to his captain and remove himself from the modern case, but the two incidents can't possibly be connected. Can they?
This was our book club selection for September, in a not entirely successful attempt to get away from the Gothic. Not everybody finished the book, which kind of put a lid on the discussion as we tried to avoid spoilers, both for the solution of the mystery and some of the personal developments of the characters. Those of us who did get to the end found it frustrating--is it too spoileriffic to say that while some questions are answered, some pretty big ones are not?
Still, the beginning was good enough that I kept going even when I started to suspect I wasn't going to like the end, the characters were psychologically interesting in a believable kind of way, and the description of the second book in the series sounded intriguing to a couple of us; I can see myself putting it on the List of Books I Want to Read Before I Die.
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