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Sep. 10th, 2003 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liadnanI forgot to mention earlier that it seems we briefly turned into a police state yesterday, when some of the draconian measures brought in as part of the consolidation of anti-terrorism legislation 2000, and then revised in the wake of 11th September 2001, were used against protestors at the Docklands Arms Fair, essentially giving the police the right to detain without having to show reasonable grounds for suspicion.
A little more of the story has emerged since I first heard it this morning on Today and for once I'm prepared to give Blunkett the benefit of the doubt and blame it on the Met. Sections 44(1) and (2) of the Terrorism Act 2000, as I understand them, have to be specifically brought in for a limited and specific duration: the Home Office has now explained that they were actually brought in for the anniversary, which is a fair point. The Met have been asked to explain precisely why they used those powers instead of ordinary public order powers (which are, frankly, themselves draconian enough these days).
It does, though, highlight a massive problem which I and many others foresaw at the time: the 2000 Act as amended is nothing like specific enough in laying down precisely the kind of situation in which such powers can be used. Knee-jerk lawmaking at its best once more. Liberty were going to apply to court this morning on the matter but I don't know what's become of their application.
****
I lugged a ridiculous quantity of books to Greece and made my way through all of them. (I abandoned the horrible trade paperbacks out there, particularly since one of them was falling apart.)
Dan Simmons Ilium: a guarded thumbs up, but I shall have to wait for the next one. I loved Hyperion/Fall of Hyperion: anyone who can get away with writing a science-fiction novel based on the theology of Teilhard de Chardin, the philosophy behind John Keats and the structure of the Canterbury Tales, and actually make it not only readable but actually gripping has my vote. Endymion/Rise of Endymion was crap though, but those of you who have the faintest clue of what I'm on about have heard my views on that already.
Ilium takes many of the same ideas, plus "post-humanism", a term I'm never sure about, basing the novel this time on the Iliad and The Tempest (with some stuff on the Sonnets thrown in. At present, it seems as though he's trying to do too much, there are just too many strands to the novel, and the motivation of too many characters is just obscure, but it's still gripping and there is another part, where doubtless all will be resolved, to come. The writing is mainly solid, occasionally very good, and occasionally clunky, though some of this is attributable to the Iliad pieces, heavily influenced by Fagles and Lattimore, neither of which I ever liked, though they were useful cribs...
Roma Eterna was enjoyable, but not as good as I had hoped. Silverberg takes the divergence point of his Roman Empire from Gibbon: "the worst thing to befall the Empire was Christianity". Oddly the way he makes that work is to go far earlier: the Exodus is a failure, but personally I think he, and Gibbon, and others who have taken this line, are just wrong. The Roman Empire was well on the way to ruin while Christianity was an illegal religion popular mainly among slaves. Regardless of whether it was a disaster for Christianity, as it arguably was, for the Empire the adoption by Constantine and Theodosius of Christianity as an official religion strengthened the Empire if anything, in my view. Also, it's worth pointing out that from the Milvian Bridge in the fourth century, something approximating to the Roman Empire actualy went on for more than a millenium, and was doing rather well for more than six hundred years.
Anyway, Silverberg's writing is always enjoyable, and other points he picks up on (each story is the equivalent in his universe of a turning point in ours), particularly having Umar (with a little help from a Roman agent) follow through on his plan of assassinating the Prophet Mohammed rather than being converted before he could do it, are more convincing. The end is a rather intriguing twist, which makes one re-examine the assumptions one has been sucked into about Silverberg's view of Rome.
Kazanzakis, God's Pauper on St Francis: as one would expect from Kazantzakis a somewhat original but deeply thought-provoking take on the story. I do wish someone would re-translate him though.
Ackroyd: Clerkenwell Tales: hmmm. Yes, like all Ackroyd, it'll need another read before I can say anything remotely coherent.
Michael Dibdin: some Aurelio Zen novel. Absolute crap.
There were several others, including rather more fun stuff than the above list indicates, but frankly, as you can clearly see from the above, I've already become bored with writing mini-reviews...
Also about five different briefs have just arrived on my desk, and one requires advice by telephone asap.
A little more of the story has emerged since I first heard it this morning on Today and for once I'm prepared to give Blunkett the benefit of the doubt and blame it on the Met. Sections 44(1) and (2) of the Terrorism Act 2000, as I understand them, have to be specifically brought in for a limited and specific duration: the Home Office has now explained that they were actually brought in for the anniversary, which is a fair point. The Met have been asked to explain precisely why they used those powers instead of ordinary public order powers (which are, frankly, themselves draconian enough these days).
It does, though, highlight a massive problem which I and many others foresaw at the time: the 2000 Act as amended is nothing like specific enough in laying down precisely the kind of situation in which such powers can be used. Knee-jerk lawmaking at its best once more. Liberty were going to apply to court this morning on the matter but I don't know what's become of their application.
****
I lugged a ridiculous quantity of books to Greece and made my way through all of them. (I abandoned the horrible trade paperbacks out there, particularly since one of them was falling apart.)
Dan Simmons Ilium: a guarded thumbs up, but I shall have to wait for the next one. I loved Hyperion/Fall of Hyperion: anyone who can get away with writing a science-fiction novel based on the theology of Teilhard de Chardin, the philosophy behind John Keats and the structure of the Canterbury Tales, and actually make it not only readable but actually gripping has my vote. Endymion/Rise of Endymion was crap though, but those of you who have the faintest clue of what I'm on about have heard my views on that already.
Ilium takes many of the same ideas, plus "post-humanism", a term I'm never sure about, basing the novel this time on the Iliad and The Tempest (with some stuff on the Sonnets thrown in. At present, it seems as though he's trying to do too much, there are just too many strands to the novel, and the motivation of too many characters is just obscure, but it's still gripping and there is another part, where doubtless all will be resolved, to come. The writing is mainly solid, occasionally very good, and occasionally clunky, though some of this is attributable to the Iliad pieces, heavily influenced by Fagles and Lattimore, neither of which I ever liked, though they were useful cribs...
Roma Eterna was enjoyable, but not as good as I had hoped. Silverberg takes the divergence point of his Roman Empire from Gibbon: "the worst thing to befall the Empire was Christianity". Oddly the way he makes that work is to go far earlier: the Exodus is a failure, but personally I think he, and Gibbon, and others who have taken this line, are just wrong. The Roman Empire was well on the way to ruin while Christianity was an illegal religion popular mainly among slaves. Regardless of whether it was a disaster for Christianity, as it arguably was, for the Empire the adoption by Constantine and Theodosius of Christianity as an official religion strengthened the Empire if anything, in my view. Also, it's worth pointing out that from the Milvian Bridge in the fourth century, something approximating to the Roman Empire actualy went on for more than a millenium, and was doing rather well for more than six hundred years.
Anyway, Silverberg's writing is always enjoyable, and other points he picks up on (each story is the equivalent in his universe of a turning point in ours), particularly having Umar (with a little help from a Roman agent) follow through on his plan of assassinating the Prophet Mohammed rather than being converted before he could do it, are more convincing. The end is a rather intriguing twist, which makes one re-examine the assumptions one has been sucked into about Silverberg's view of Rome.
Kazanzakis, God's Pauper on St Francis: as one would expect from Kazantzakis a somewhat original but deeply thought-provoking take on the story. I do wish someone would re-translate him though.
Ackroyd: Clerkenwell Tales: hmmm. Yes, like all Ackroyd, it'll need another read before I can say anything remotely coherent.
Michael Dibdin: some Aurelio Zen novel. Absolute crap.
There were several others, including rather more fun stuff than the above list indicates, but frankly, as you can clearly see from the above, I've already become bored with writing mini-reviews...
Also about five different briefs have just arrived on my desk, and one requires advice by telephone asap.
