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Karsa Orlong

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    Steve's Bookshelf 2015

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    The Builders by Daniel Polansky

     

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    2015 - Tor ebook - 224 pages

     

     

    A missing eye.
    A broken wing.
    A stolen country.

    The last job didn't end well.

    Years go by, and scars fade, but memories only fester. For the animals of the Captain's company, survival has meant keeping a low profile, building a new life, and trying to forget the war they lost. But now the Captain's whiskers are twitching at the idea of evening the score.

     

     

    I needed something quick and refreshing after the epic-ness of Caesar and this fit the bill.  As it's a novella and a very quick read I don't want to say too much about the plot.  Basically, it's about a bunch of animals (a mouse, a stoat, a badger, a mole, an opossum, an owl, and a salamander) who formed a squad during a civil war, which their side won, only to discover there was a traitor in their midst and have the tables turned in their hour of victory.  The story is set five years after that, and naturally it is a tale of revenge.

     

    Now, animals.  They are completely anthropomorphised, stand upright, wear clothes, use weapons, talk, smoke and drink.  Wind in the Willows this ain't.  It kind of begs the question why Polansky didn't just make them human, and why he never really assigns the qualities of each animal to that particular character, but never mind, because it is a huge amount of fun.  Most of that fun comes from the characters.  My favourites were Bonsoir, the French saboteur stoat, and Barley, the chaingun-wielding badger who swore himself to peace until the Captain (a mouse) turns up and drags him back in.  All of the characters are introduced in quick-fire vignettes that read like the recruitment scenes in Seven Samurai.

     

    And there's no doubt that the story owes a lot to Westerns like The Magnificent Seven and The Wild Bunch via Sergio Leone and maybe a bit of war movies like The Dirty Dozen.  It's got that hard-bitten feel where the characters utter as few words as possible whilst chomping on cigars and squinting against the sun from beneath stetsons and sombreros.

     

    It's a simple tale (Polansky admits it began life as a one-note joke) that wins through on style rather than depth.  I have no problem with that in the short form.  The only problem I had with it was that I felt he didn't do enough with the traitor subplot, which held a lot of interest at the start and could've led to some interesting and tense scenes, but seemed rather thrown away in the end.

     

    Apart from that, I rather enjoyed it.

    Steve's Bookshelf 2015

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    Caesar (Masters of Rome Book #5) by Colleen McCullough

     

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    1998 - Head of Zeus ebook - 932 pages

     

     

    Rome 54 BC:

     

    Caesar's legions are sweeping across Gaul, brutally subduing the tribes who defy him. But, in Rome, his enemies are plotting his downfall and disgrace. Vindictive schemers like Cato and Bibulus, the spineless Cicero, the avaricious Brutus. Even Pompey, Caesar's former ally.

     

    But all have underestimated Caesar.

     

    When the Senate refuse to give him his due he marches upon Rome, an army prepared to die for him at his back. Rome is his destiny - a destiny that will impel him to the banks of the Rubicon, and beyond, into legend.

     

     

    It's about a year since I read the previous book in this series, Caesar's Women.  I found that one really heavy-going, mainly because I was burnt out on the series at the time having read four such doorstoppers in quick succession.  I'd always intended to return to the series, though, and - having failed miserably with Christian Cameron's Alexander: God of War - I found I was still in the mood for some epic historical fiction.

     

    Caesar didn't disappoint at all.  Beginning some five years after the fourth book, with Caesar's second foray into Britannia drawing to a close and then taking in the sweep of his campaign in Gaul of the Long Hairs, the political machinations in Rome as various factions set out to deny him, his subsequent attempts to achieve a peaceful resolution before finally crossing the Rubicon and forcing Rome into civil war, this is a huge, sweeping, gripping tale.  

     

    I suspect a lot of authors wouldn't be up to the job, there is so much detail, so many characters, so many facts and events.  McCullough is well up to it, though.  She achieves this with a mixture of styles - sometimes through human drama, sometimes through pages of historical info dumps, sometimes epistolary, sometimes romantic, sometimes tragic, always with an undercurrent of mischievous humour that never fails to bring these people to life.

     

    As you would hope, the sections about Caesar are gripping.  As a character he is immense, dominating every scene in which he appears, and McCullough leaves you in no doubt as to why his men would follow and die for him, through both action and rousing, tub-thumping speeches.  At times I wondered if she was perhaps deifying him a little too much, but then she'd slip in some sly character observation that makes you see a darker side, or perhaps examine his grief at the loss of loved ones back at home in Rome, whom he has not seen for years due to his campaigns on foreign soil.  I found it a really impressive work of characterisation.

     

    But it's not just about him.  His cohorts include Mark Antony and Gaius Curio.  Back in Rome we are party to the lives of, among others, the arrogant, ineffectual Pompey; the irritating, adversarial Cato; the simpering Cicero; the clawing, manipulative, bitter Servilia and her cowed son, Brutus.  In Gaul of the Long Hairs, amidst a host of others, we have Vercingetorix, whose attempts to unite the Gaulish against Caesar see his rise to power.  And then, as the story rolls back eastwards, there is Cleopatra.  There are so, so many memorable characters.

     

    In every way I can imagine, Caesar is an absolute triumph, historically accurate, breathtaking in its detail, and vivid in its characterisation.  It makes Conn Iggulden's attempt look like a comic book.  Historical fiction at its very best, and second only in my affections to Patrick O'Brian.

     

    Fabulous.

     

     

     

    "Goddess Fortuna is a very jealous mistress.  I propitiate her."

     

    "One day she'll desert you."

     

    "Oh, no.  Never."

     

    "You have enemies.  They might kill you."

     

    "I will die," said Caesar, getting to his feet, "when I am quite ready."

     

     

     

    Suddenly he threw his head back and laughed, remembering a line from his favourite poet, Menander.

     

    "Let the dice fly high!" he cried, and rode across the Rubicon into Italia and rebellion.

     

    Steve's Bookshelf 2015

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

     It's strange... they look like normal people!

     

    More normal than a Rush crowd, I suppose :lol:

     

     

     

     

     

    Was there a manly parasol in the cocktail ?  ;)

     

    Also - Buzzfeed Canadian Memes.   :giggle2:

     

    Don't remember a parasol :unsure:  I should've asked for one  :giggle2:

     

    LOL at the memes - so true, especially number 6 :lol:

     

     

     

    hope the cocktail was yummy :)

     

    I had so many cocktails while I was there I can't remember that particular one  :giggle2:   I think it was peach :unsure:  Peach and alcohol  :giggle2:

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