Bleergh

[liadnan]

Godawful miserable day, grim weather, tired, spent too much money on dull things, nothing in brain today, blah.

Just re-read Donna Tartt's Secret History for the first time since shortly after it came out. Sadly disappointing now, I found myself loathing each and every one of the characters, except Camilla...

And my semi-serious plan of joining the Historical Crime Craze by being the first to write a Byzantine Lindsey Davis type thing (I know, not particularly original but it had potential I thought) has been done by some 26 year old while I procrastinated.

I am going to go and get drunk now. I may be some time.

Comments

Re: did it snow there?

[liadnan]

Never quite got to snowq here. And now warmer hurrah: was getting really fed up with the cold.

By HCC I just mean that in the last few years historical crimne has become endemic, and with some notable exceptions (Davis and Saylor, although he can be stodgy, particularly once you've worked out which Cicero speech this is) they're often a bit rubbish.

Re: did it snow there?

[nikandra.livejournal.com]

It doesn't seem to have gotten any warmer here.

But at least I realised why the weather is such an interesting topic of conversation here - lol.

HCC- I usually stay away from those. I have read a few set in Rome, but they were more focused on te crime aspect rather than the Roman aspect. And then there were those set in classical Athens... I was too afraid to read those!

Re: did it snow there?

[liadnan]

Well, I haven't read many Greek ones (I believe there's an Aristotle-Super Sleuth lot) though incidentally _The Athenian Murders_ (Somosa or something?) is well-worth a read and not really the same kind of thing at all.. at least by the end.

Saylor's first six or so are very, very closely based on bits of Cicero... Our Hero has an ambivalent relationship with Cicero and is emplyed by him (or sometimes other characters) in various of Cicero's big cases. He now seems to have run out of that lot and gone into writing about the Civil War.

Davies is quite different in style: set under Vespasian and much more light-hearted. And better-written, frankly.

I blame Eco, obviously.

Re: did it snow there?

[nikandra.livejournal.com]

Ah, but you can blame Eco for a lot of things.

(and why does no one ever blame Wittgenstein for anything?)

I have read reviews of Athenian Murders. Maybe one day. I'll probably try the Davies books once I finish the ones I have in my To-Read stack.