"Black Sun Rising", C.S.Friedman

This is very nearly a great book. It's just that every time I am getting sucked in it comes up with a piece of sloppy prose (comparing fantasy elements to a shish kebab?) or awkward over-explanation or unconvincing motivation; a little more polishing might have smoothed a good deal of it out. As it is, it's still a very good bit of fantasy.

The basic concept is a fascinating one: that of an alien world with Lamarckian evolution ("if trees grow taller, the next gaffi calves are born with longer necks. If lakes dry up, the offspring of underwater creatures are born with rudimentary lungs. Their need affects their DNA, in precise and perfect balance"), and where human minds can affect their surroundings simply by existing, creating an involuntary manifestation of every nightmare that crosses their awareness, or - in the case of those with training and mental discipline- by deliberate acts of will that amount in effect to magic.( Read more... )

More pink mortality

Unbelievably, one of my three replacement pink Swan River daisies withered pretty much overnight in exactly the same way as the originals did back in June. The central leaves were initially still alive, but subsequently started to die back as well. When I pulled it up there didn't seem to be a lot of root, but I don't know if that was cause or effect... I didn't find anything in the soil when I emptied out the pot other than a number of very healthy worms.

So far, the other two plants look fine. I note that we were apparently having a heatwave in June a few days before the first batch died, and wonder if I had been over-watering in both cases in order to compensate, or if this variety simply copes less well with extreme heat than the blue variety does :-(

"Henry, Elizabeth and George"

I assumed this book was about Kings and Queens, but in fact it turns out to be a collection of 18th-century family letters found at Wilton House, seat of the Earls of Pembroke, in the 1930s, "Henry" being the 10th Earl, "Elizabeth" his wife, and "George" their son, Lord Herbert. The letters and diaries in this volume mainly cover the years 1775-1780, the period during which young Lord Herbert, then in his teens, made his Grand Tour of Europe, and consist, in addition to assorted other letters, of the lengthy correspondence between the young man and his parents at home, between the latter and his tutors, the Rev. W. Coxe and Captain Floyd, and Lord Herbert's detailed diary for the final part of the trip in 1779-80.

This collection is surprisingly interesting, especially in the second half, where we can see young Lord Herbert growing up in the course of his diary entries. ( Read more... )