And the heavens open...

[liadnan]

just as I was pootling off home.
So I shall waste my time and yours with musings ... oh, hang on, it's stopped. So I shan't. Good thing too, I was about to get all serious.
(Basically, I was going to rant about how the 21st century is the 19th revisited, only with a whacking backbeat put on, and with public life and civilisation in general having become a matter of style over substance. You know the deal, most of you have heard me on it before, fill in the blanks for yourselves...)
The "next Pullman" thing I referred to earlier is Across the Nightingale Floor, Lian Hearn; and the other thing was Shadowmancer by G.P. Taylor. Whether either of them are actually good remains to be seen. And, after months, and I do mean that quite literally, Blackwells have finally tracked down a copy of Stephen Marlowe's Death and Life of Miguel de Cervantes (novel, despite the title) which I love and am desparate to check is as good as I remember, so without more ado (what is ado anyway?), I'm off in the interval between thunderstorms...
...(and he exits the library just as the heavens open once more and a wall of water descends. Probably).

Comments

The 21st Century is the 19th Century revisited

[etherealfionna.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard you on this. Please elaborate at some stage, it sounds like something I would have hours of fun thinking about...

Re: The 21st Century is the 19th Century revisited

[liadnan]

I'm sure I've said this on the list before. The short version is that the "normal" course of history began to die on the Somme and was finished off at Hiroshima... but was resurrected by the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not only in terms of international affairs and the like, but also in socio-cultural terms.
I'll rant if you like, sometime when I have the energy...