Rural reading

The local library had a Monster Book Sale today - the chance to scoop up hardback editions nicely covered in plastic for the price of only $1.00 each - so guess where I’ve been this arvo?

However, since I’m still reading the booty I gleaned at their last sale, I put myself on a 5 book limit this time, and actually stuck to the restriction. So I got The Year’s Best Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois (the 20th annual collection from 2003), and added to my Tales of the Otori series by Lian Hearn with The Harsh Cry of the Heron and Heaven’s Net is Wide, neither of which, alas, I can read until I have secured Brilliance of the Moon.

But the very first book I pounced upon was Naomi Novik's Victory of Eagles, so now my post-trail-riding-plus-three-long-days-at-the-Arvo-Job brain (which also decided that this week's movie should be RED rather than Gainsbourg because it wasn't up to accessing long ago French lessons or negotiating subtitles, but a bit of Bruce Willis blowing up things was just the ticket) is telling me to sit in the backyard in the beautiful Spring weather (outside reading is a joy I’ve rediscovered since moving to the country) and just go adventuring with Temeraire and Captain Will Laurence. I’m trying to negotiate the doing of a few chores before this Napoleonic bliss-out, and I think I will win because one of them is the baking of dill and onion bread that will go extremely well with dragonish daredevilry and cups of tea, but we’ll see.

I’m not even going to broach the subject of getting my last YOSF&F workshop submission sent off today. If I do, I think my brain will throw a tantrum.

Decorous dragons and daring deeds

I pray, ladies and gentlemen, do not endeavour to tempt me with volumes that feature hordes of undisciplined undead slaying the landed gentry in their country estates, for I will coolly rebuff you. I consider lady writers such as Miss Austen and the assorted Brontë sisters, if the qualities of their creations in any way reflect the temperaments of those who so skillfully shaped them, to be women of subtle wit and stout character, and so I cherish their literary efforts too much to risk sullying any future readings of Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice with unbidden images of fanged fiends and woolly werewolves leaping out at me from between their most well-constructed lines.

That said, I am not in the least averse to a spot of speculative fiction that is liberally salted with Regency manners and peppered with scathing indictments against Napoleon. Indeed, as proof of my pro-Georgian leanings, I submit that I have just finished Empire of Ivory, another novel by that highly esteemed lady writer Naomi Novik, featuring Temeraire, a most remarkable dragon, and his dear captain, William Laurence. This time, the well-mannered and wide-ranging pair journeyed to Africa. Suffice to say, along the way, they encountered ethical dilemmas, endured all manner of physical hardships, bravely battled fearsome foes, and resisted the common prejudices of their times, all whilst keeping themselves impeccably groomed and verbally decorous.

Alas, however, this particular adventure is now over, and I can but metaphorically clasp the closed book to my bosom (for I have already returned said tome to the library from whence it came) and pray that I shall soon be reunited with Captain Laurence and Temeraire, for I fear for their safety and would know their further fates.