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Just cracked open this little micro history.
Or, Thought Currents of Primitive Peoples
by GEORGE WILLIAM GILMORE
[1919]
I greatly enjoyed Paulos's I Think Therefore I Laugh, so I picked this up. Just as good so far. Paulos is good thinker, and a very capable writer.
I already have a good head start on It and I don't think I'll finish it by the movie.
Translated from the original Greek
With a Preliminary Dissertation on
THE LIFE AND THEOLOGY OF ORPHEUS.
London, printed for the Author,
And sold by T. Payne, at the Mews-gate; B. White and Son,
Fleet-street; G. Nicol, Pall-Mall; R. Faulder, New
Bond-street. 1792.
by Kathleen Freeman
[1948]
Have you read Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu?
I lost count on how often I read it. And I will read it again this season. I don't like it as much as Dracula but Le Fanu's work stands on its own and has never been contained or erased by Stoker's. Or indeed any horror writer.
I read almost exclusively horror from mid August until Halloween. I try to discover as many writers of the genre I can, old and new but mainly old.
That is the one thing great minds don t do.
I have a copy myself. Well, there's a surprise.
Just bits here and there, and from studying History. I'm told it's pretty badly written and Rudolf Hess came up with most of it anyhow. There was also a second book by Hitler published after his death. Don't have that one.
I hope you didn't read any spoilers online.
That's what Herr Speer was for. Hitler was more involved in the demolition business in fact.
As professional occupations have kept me from reading books for almost two months, it's been a while since I visited the Star Wars universe in print. Finally though, I've managed to sit down and read THRAWN, a book I've been willing to read for quite some time now. It took me but two nights to do so, but did I enjoy it?
Timothy Zahn, whose Star Wars novels still rank among many a fan's favourites, has finally entered the "new canon". Even more so, he was asked to bring his best known character, Grand Admiral Thrawn, with him. And since Star Wars Rebels Season 3 wasn't reluctant to feature the blue-skinned Chiss, a book devoted entirely to Thrawn for the new canon makes perfect sense.
But hadn't Zahn told us more or less everything there is to know about Thrawn in eight previous books (and some short stories) already? Perhaps. Of course those books now exist in the "Legends" series, a vault of stories no longer in canon with Disney's current take on Star Wars. The problem with Thrawn, however, is that the very details about his life and his imperial career, meticulously explored in those other books, completely define the character. To dismiss them as no longer accurate would be to lose the character almost entirely. Hence, the new book, THRAWN, talks about the titular character's rise from stowaway aboard an imperial ship to one of the Emperor's closest servants, a part of Thrawn's life previously left mostly untouched, with most if not all of the other events subtly ignored. One might argue that despite the promise of exciting adventures, the result borders on tedium, as the most logical sequence of career moves seems to be one more or less devoid of spectacle, tension and intrigue. Add to that the fact that the post-Clone Wars, pre-Yavin period in which this story is set isn't the most exiting one in the Star Wars universe either.
Consequently, almost half the book isn't devoted to Thrawn but to Arihnda Pryce, an original REBELS character, who will eventually become something of an assistant of Thrawn's. Thrawn himself is paired with another new character, Eli Vanto, who also absorbs a great deal of page time. With Palpatine barely featured in this novel, the stuff that I had hoped for, including Thrawn gaining the Emperor's trust, being tested by the latter, potentially ending up in conflict with the likes of Vader or Tarkin, is not in the book. Instead, we chase some pirates, fence off a few weak political conspiracies and solve practical problems with considerable ease.
A book about one of my favourite Star Wars characters, written by one of my favourite Star Wars authors, with the promise of synthesising a good introduction of a familiar character in the new canon... what could go wrong? Well, I kept asking myself that question as I jumped from chapter to chapter, enjoying Zahn's prose, but much less so the presence of the brilliant Admiral Thrawn and his adventures (or lack thereof). Perhaps my high expectations have logically led to some resentment. Either way, the energy that books like HEIR TO THE EMPIRE and VISIONS OF THE FUTURE or even OUTBOUND FLIGHT had previously brought, seems lacking in Zahn's latest book. Though reviews are mostly positive, some even overwhelmingly positive, and though very little can go wrong compared to Chuck Wendig's mostly boring AFTERMATH trilogy, THRAWN constantly flirts with being uninteresting too and with perpetuating the unflattering hypothesis that "new canon" material will never outdo Zahn's "Legends" books.
While well written and ending on a high note, THRAWN is much more of a "mèh" to me than I had wanted. Rather disappointed in its lack of rhythm and spectacle, constantly hoping for those brilliant strategic moves that Thrawn is known for, I read the book with less joy than I should have in order to recommend it. Going back to "Legends" for two more Zahn books, feels like something of a liberation now. To those who already know Thrawn, I'd even say, skip this book. It really isn't bad; it just isn't very interesting.
3/5
Magician Impossible - When there has not been a new Harry Dresden book around for some time you start to look for similar and different books in the genre.
The Grouch Letters by Groucho Marx - fun and original thinking
To read next:
He - John Connolly as sort of biography of Stan Laurel
Sleeping Beauties - Stephen King & Owen King because there is always time to read anything King has Produced
I have three more Timothy Zahn books to review in the Star Wars Legends series, and ALLEGIANCE is the first of those. Set between the battles of Yavin and Hoth, this book explores the adventures of three different groups of people, destined to end up in the same conflict between the empire and a group of pirates.
First we meet Han, Luke and Leia, before the romance, before the brother-sister thing. They try to settle a dispute between some relatively new members of the rebellion, and eventually cross paths with five stormtrooper deserters. Disgusted by the imperial order to kill an entire village full of innocents, these men bravely decide to run away and put their skills to good use while helping people rather than killing them. Lastly, the Emperor's Hand herself, Mara Jade, in Zahn's novels destined to one day become Luke's wife and the mother of his children, is sent on a mission to learn more about a governor's embezzlement of imperial property. She follows a group of pirates, the same pirates that are being chased by our rebels and deserting stormtroopers...
This book may have but one problem: too many characters. And given that nearly all of these characters play a pivotal part in the story, it's difficult at first to figure out what is going on. But as the story progresses, things become really interesting. It's great, for example, to see smart and noble stormtroopers for once, taking a stance against the empire, not unlike John Boyega's Finn in THE FORCE AWAKENS. Also, Mara has a few brief encounters with Vader, and those are simply brilliant! Small things that Zahn throws in for the fans, but they matter a great deal, especially to fans of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. At least one particular scene in that film will play out a tad differently now that I've read this book.
Though I had to page back to the very helpful 'dramatis personæ' quite often, I found ALLEGIANCE an entertaining, exciting and well-written book. Zahn possesses the skills, unlike many other Star Wars authors, to keep coming up with fresh material, still set in familiar places, linked to familiar conflicts and with familiar characters. His writing remains very dense, making me think that like Stephen King, Zahn has fallen in love with his own words. But one can do a lot worse than 400 pages of Zahn's Star Wars prose. This was a very good read!
4,5/5