http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2011/03/being-alive.html
I love Neil Gaiman's work.
I just read his blog about Diana Wynne Jones dying of cancer and it made me cry. It's a lovely tribute to her.
Jeepers I've been in a dark mood lately.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
The Man With The Golden Torc by Simon R. Green
So it's the Super Moon - the closest Full Moon we've had to the earth in 20 years. It's nearly the Spring Equinox, a time of year which is supposed to herald the return of new life, and the beginning of a new year of growth and goodness. However, we have recently had the horrific Tsunami, Earthquake, and resultant Nuclear Meltdown disaster in Japan, and war, violence, death, and destruction going on all over the world. We are all so in need of a hero and some hope right now. I don't feel full of optimism at the moment. In fact I am feeling downright dark at the moment and this story suits my mood and nature perfectly right now.
The Man With the Golden Torc, is about a heroic guy who is born into a famous and powerful family (The Droods aka Druids) of what he believes to be heroes, people who supposedly fight for the "right". He himself has always been a bit of a loner, and a bit of a rebel, but one with a good heart, not one who is easily seduced into doing "wrong".
His cover name in the outside world is "Shaman Bond". I love this name of his because it's a nod to both the magickal aspects to the story, and a nod to the every day spy-technical aspects to the story.
Not far into the story our hero cum rebel begins to discover that not all is as it seems, even for himself - a man of the "Twilight", a person living not quite in and not quite outside of either the supernatural or the every day worlds, and someone who is not completely inside nor outside of the Drood family as well.
Can I ever relate to his liminal status! I love this character. He could be my male twin.
Another character which I love in this story is Girl Flower. Girl Flower is a nod to the Welsh myth of Bloddeuwedd . As anyone who knows me, and has kept up with my blog is aware, I have a particular fondness for owls. Bloddeuwedd" is Welsh for "owl".
The hero of the Welsh tale Lleu Llaw Gyffes is cursed by his mother to never marry a human wife. Well this doesn't seem fair does it? Every man has to have a woman all his very own right? Hmmmm... Oh that wicked driving human need to own and possess and control...
To circumvent this seemingly unreasonable curse two magicians Math and Gwydion take the flowers of the oak, broom, and meadowsweet to create the most beautiful maiden ever known to be Lleu Llaw Gyffes' wife. However, while he is away, she has an affair with the anti-hero Gronw Pebr and the two create a plan to murder Lleu.
Lleu is another one of these twilight persons. He cannot be killed as long as he is fully in one or another place or time or situation. He can only be killed when he is somewhere/somewhen inbetween. (e.g. he can only be killed at dusk, wrapped in a net with one foot on a cauldron and one on a goat and with a spear forged for a year during the hours when everyone is at mass.)
His wife shares this information with her lover and he tries to kill Lleu. The murder is not quite successful, and when Lleu returns, he transforms his unfaithful wife into an owl and curses her:
I've always thought this was a grossly unfair story to burden owls with. I think owls are lovely birds. However, it is true that they are mistrusted and feared in many cultures, being associated with death, darkness, ghosts, curses, and ye wicked old witchcraft. Le Sigh. Poor things.
Anyhow back to our deliciously Jungian story. For some mysterious reason our hero, Shaman Bond is driven out of the Drood Family by the Matriarch and the entire world is given license to hunt him down.
He has to take refuge in the underbelly of British civilization, with all the criminals, and he even has to go delving into the stinking city sewers for help and answers. Along the way, having to enlist help from the "dark side", he attracts a small band of helpers including Mr. Stab (Jack the Ripper), Molly Metcalf the wild witch, and Girl Flower (who is described as an elemental who can manifest as either a beautiful girl made of lovely flowers or a wickedly violent and murderous female made of owls talons).
Underground in the sewers Girl Flower takes a decimated rat's body and drops it into her bodice.
"Poor little ratty."
"Oh ick." said Molly.
"I am flowers darling." Girl Flower said stubbornly." And all dead things are as compost to my pretty petals." She slipped the rat carcass inside the front of her dress, and it immediately disappeared.
Molly looked at me. "Think about that the next time she invites you to unbutton her blouse."
I looked determinedly in another direction. "If she starts coughing up owl pellets, she's going back."
(Green p. 171)
(I'm liking this Girl more and more all the time by the way. )
Probably one of my most favorite parts of the story involves Mr. Stab revealing one of his underground super secret stashes of mutilated dead women's bodies posed around a Victorian table. Girl Flower examines the scene and she...
"floated prettily around the room, bending over withered shoulders to stare into corrupt faces, humming a happy song to herself. "You shouldn't have let this get to you darlings. All living things have their roots in dead things. It's the way of the world." She slipped a hand inside her dress and frowned prettily for a moment, and when she brought her hand out again it was piled high with seeds. She walked up and down both sides of the long table dropping a few seeds into the gaping mouths and empty eye sockets of every corpse. "Let new life bloom," she said. "It's nature's way."
Mr. Stab looked at her, and Girl Flower smiled happily back at him, entirely unafraid. And the man who was once called Jack by a whole horrified city nodded slowly.
"Perhaps I'll come back, in some future time," he said. "To see what strange new life has blossomed here."
I didn't kill him. As an agent in the field, you learn that sometimes you have to settle for little victories.
(Green p 174)
So. The novel is basically about the ambiguity of human nature and it's overwhelming selfish drive for power and control. Right and wrong, day and night, good and evil, life and death...things are not always so...black and white. Sometimes they are more grey, inbetweenish, and twilighty...and I have always identified myself as existing in that place so the novel suits me just fine.
I'm distinctly unhappy with the human race tonight. More-so than usual. I've never been happy with the way it runs its affairs. I don't trust any politicians or power systems in the world. I despise the way humanity rapes and pillages, plunders and exploits, destroys and poisons the world, and tramples pettily upon pretty much anything beautiful, valuable, vulnerable and natural that it cannot patent, possess, control, and make money off of.
As a Pagan, as a Witch. as a Woman, I'm supposed to be celebrating the Full Moon tonight. I'm supposed to be celebrating the Spring Equinox in a few days. How am I supposed to do that when I look around me and the whole world is in major upheaval: War, Corruption, Oppression, Pollution, Global Warming, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Nuclear Meltdown...and political lie after lie after lie...
How long will we last to safely breath the air, drink the water, eat from the earth, and turn our faces to the sun after all that we have done, and when we reap what we have sown? What blooms will bloom this Spring and what fruits will ripen this Summer? What harvest will we see this coming Fall? And what will our Nuclear Winter be like?
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
-- William Butler Yeats, January 1919"
My feeling tonight is incredibly dark, dismal and dim -- dark enough to
quote a famous biblical phrase which is terribly unlike me.
I feel that ultimately we shall "Reap the Whirlwind" and that we will have deserved it.
"They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind"
This quote comes from the Book of Hosea in the Hebrew Bible.
It was used by Bomber Harris in response to the Blitz of 1940.
I know human beings are constantly predicting doom and gloom, apocalypse
and so on, but really, how often do we have to @#$% things up before we don't
get any more second and third chances? How far do we have to go before we've
gone past the point of no return? We never learn from history. We are all so bloody
arrogant and selfish.
Forgive me or not, I really don't care, but I'm distinctly identifying with the view points of Mr. Stab and Girl Flower right now.
Ah well. That truly is Mother Nature isn't it. That which is meant to die and decay will. That which is meant to live will be born out of death.
Runa (aka Bloddeuwedd) gives Four Talons to Simon R. Green and The Man With the Golden Torc.
Sleep well little earth. I'm a pissed off witch tonight. So I'm letting go, and going with the flow. I'm thinking about Black Holes and imploding and exploding galaxies right now. Stars being born and stars dying. We are dust on the feet of the dancing Universe. Lord Shiva is dancing with the Goddess Kali.
The Man With the Golden Torc, is about a heroic guy who is born into a famous and powerful family (The Droods aka Druids) of what he believes to be heroes, people who supposedly fight for the "right". He himself has always been a bit of a loner, and a bit of a rebel, but one with a good heart, not one who is easily seduced into doing "wrong".
His cover name in the outside world is "Shaman Bond". I love this name of his because it's a nod to both the magickal aspects to the story, and a nod to the every day spy-technical aspects to the story.
Not far into the story our hero cum rebel begins to discover that not all is as it seems, even for himself - a man of the "Twilight", a person living not quite in and not quite outside of either the supernatural or the every day worlds, and someone who is not completely inside nor outside of the Drood family as well.
Can I ever relate to his liminal status! I love this character. He could be my male twin.
Another character which I love in this story is Girl Flower. Girl Flower is a nod to the Welsh myth of Bloddeuwedd . As anyone who knows me, and has kept up with my blog is aware, I have a particular fondness for owls. Bloddeuwedd" is Welsh for "owl".
The hero of the Welsh tale Lleu Llaw Gyffes is cursed by his mother to never marry a human wife. Well this doesn't seem fair does it? Every man has to have a woman all his very own right? Hmmmm... Oh that wicked driving human need to own and possess and control...
To circumvent this seemingly unreasonable curse two magicians Math and Gwydion take the flowers of the oak, broom, and meadowsweet to create the most beautiful maiden ever known to be Lleu Llaw Gyffes' wife. However, while he is away, she has an affair with the anti-hero Gronw Pebr and the two create a plan to murder Lleu.
Lleu is another one of these twilight persons. He cannot be killed as long as he is fully in one or another place or time or situation. He can only be killed when he is somewhere/somewhen inbetween. (e.g. he can only be killed at dusk, wrapped in a net with one foot on a cauldron and one on a goat and with a spear forged for a year during the hours when everyone is at mass.)
His wife shares this information with her lover and he tries to kill Lleu. The murder is not quite successful, and when Lleu returns, he transforms his unfaithful wife into an owl and curses her:
| “ | You will not dare to show your face ever again in the light of day ever again, and that will be because of enmity between you and all other birds. It will be in their nature to harass you and despise you wherever they find you. And you will not lose your name - that will always be "Bloddeuwedd (Flower-face)."[1] | ” |
I've always thought this was a grossly unfair story to burden owls with. I think owls are lovely birds. However, it is true that they are mistrusted and feared in many cultures, being associated with death, darkness, ghosts, curses, and ye wicked old witchcraft. Le Sigh. Poor things.
Anyhow back to our deliciously Jungian story. For some mysterious reason our hero, Shaman Bond is driven out of the Drood Family by the Matriarch and the entire world is given license to hunt him down.
He has to take refuge in the underbelly of British civilization, with all the criminals, and he even has to go delving into the stinking city sewers for help and answers. Along the way, having to enlist help from the "dark side", he attracts a small band of helpers including Mr. Stab (Jack the Ripper), Molly Metcalf the wild witch, and Girl Flower (who is described as an elemental who can manifest as either a beautiful girl made of lovely flowers or a wickedly violent and murderous female made of owls talons).
Underground in the sewers Girl Flower takes a decimated rat's body and drops it into her bodice.
"Poor little ratty."
"Oh ick." said Molly.
"I am flowers darling." Girl Flower said stubbornly." And all dead things are as compost to my pretty petals." She slipped the rat carcass inside the front of her dress, and it immediately disappeared.
Molly looked at me. "Think about that the next time she invites you to unbutton her blouse."
I looked determinedly in another direction. "If she starts coughing up owl pellets, she's going back."
(Green p. 171)
(I'm liking this Girl more and more all the time by the way. )
Probably one of my most favorite parts of the story involves Mr. Stab revealing one of his underground super secret stashes of mutilated dead women's bodies posed around a Victorian table. Girl Flower examines the scene and she...
"floated prettily around the room, bending over withered shoulders to stare into corrupt faces, humming a happy song to herself. "You shouldn't have let this get to you darlings. All living things have their roots in dead things. It's the way of the world." She slipped a hand inside her dress and frowned prettily for a moment, and when she brought her hand out again it was piled high with seeds. She walked up and down both sides of the long table dropping a few seeds into the gaping mouths and empty eye sockets of every corpse. "Let new life bloom," she said. "It's nature's way."
Mr. Stab looked at her, and Girl Flower smiled happily back at him, entirely unafraid. And the man who was once called Jack by a whole horrified city nodded slowly.
"Perhaps I'll come back, in some future time," he said. "To see what strange new life has blossomed here."
I didn't kill him. As an agent in the field, you learn that sometimes you have to settle for little victories.
(Green p 174)
So. The novel is basically about the ambiguity of human nature and it's overwhelming selfish drive for power and control. Right and wrong, day and night, good and evil, life and death...things are not always so...black and white. Sometimes they are more grey, inbetweenish, and twilighty...and I have always identified myself as existing in that place so the novel suits me just fine.
I'm distinctly unhappy with the human race tonight. More-so than usual. I've never been happy with the way it runs its affairs. I don't trust any politicians or power systems in the world. I despise the way humanity rapes and pillages, plunders and exploits, destroys and poisons the world, and tramples pettily upon pretty much anything beautiful, valuable, vulnerable and natural that it cannot patent, possess, control, and make money off of.
As a Pagan, as a Witch. as a Woman, I'm supposed to be celebrating the Full Moon tonight. I'm supposed to be celebrating the Spring Equinox in a few days. How am I supposed to do that when I look around me and the whole world is in major upheaval: War, Corruption, Oppression, Pollution, Global Warming, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Nuclear Meltdown...and political lie after lie after lie...
How long will we last to safely breath the air, drink the water, eat from the earth, and turn our faces to the sun after all that we have done, and when we reap what we have sown? What blooms will bloom this Spring and what fruits will ripen this Summer? What harvest will we see this coming Fall? And what will our Nuclear Winter be like?
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
-- William Butler Yeats, January 1919"
My feeling tonight is incredibly dark, dismal and dim -- dark enough to
quote a famous biblical phrase which is terribly unlike me.
I feel that ultimately we shall "Reap the Whirlwind" and that we will have deserved it.
"They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind"
This quote comes from the Book of Hosea in the Hebrew Bible.
It was used by Bomber Harris in response to the Blitz of 1940.
I know human beings are constantly predicting doom and gloom, apocalypse
and so on, but really, how often do we have to @#$% things up before we don't
get any more second and third chances? How far do we have to go before we've
gone past the point of no return? We never learn from history. We are all so bloody
arrogant and selfish.
Forgive me or not, I really don't care, but I'm distinctly identifying with the view points of Mr. Stab and Girl Flower right now.
Ah well. That truly is Mother Nature isn't it. That which is meant to die and decay will. That which is meant to live will be born out of death.
Runa (aka Bloddeuwedd) gives Four Talons to Simon R. Green and The Man With the Golden Torc.
Sleep well little earth. I'm a pissed off witch tonight. So I'm letting go, and going with the flow. I'm thinking about Black Holes and imploding and exploding galaxies right now. Stars being born and stars dying. We are dust on the feet of the dancing Universe. Lord Shiva is dancing with the Goddess Kali.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Waking The Witch by Kelley Armstrong
I'm rather fond of this Canadian author partially because she lives in Ontario (my home province), and she writes decent quality supernatural thriller/detective novels with convincing kick a$$ strong female leads. I am always confident that when I pick up a book by her, I am going to be entertained and so far, I have not been disappointed.
This particular Otherworld novel features young Savannah Levine as the main female character. At 21, little Savannah is growing up into a proper good-bad witch/sorceress! And she's ready to take on the detecting tradition of her guardians Paige and Lucas herself - with just a little back up from a couple of friends of course.
I have to admit that this one really kept me guessing right to the very end, although I did start suspecting just one of the many bad "guys" sprinkled into the plot a little earlier on.
Overall it was a fun read for an non-stop rainy day. Just WHEN *is* it going to stop raining anyway? I am just going to have to start reading another library book to while away the evening hours...
Eeny meeny miny mo, which book is the next to go?
This particular Otherworld novel features young Savannah Levine as the main female character. At 21, little Savannah is growing up into a proper good-bad witch/sorceress! And she's ready to take on the detecting tradition of her guardians Paige and Lucas herself - with just a little back up from a couple of friends of course.
I have to admit that this one really kept me guessing right to the very end, although I did start suspecting just one of the many bad "guys" sprinkled into the plot a little earlier on.
Overall it was a fun read for an non-stop rainy day. Just WHEN *is* it going to stop raining anyway? I am just going to have to start reading another library book to while away the evening hours...
Eeny meeny miny mo, which book is the next to go?
Friday, March 4, 2011
A Bad, Bad Girl
I've been a bad, bad girl. I've been reading, but neglecting to write up any reviews. As a result I've totally lost track of how many books I've read and liked (or not liked) since my last entry. :-(
Right now I've just got two already read books left out of my latest stack of novels that I haven't returned to the library yet. They are:
Indigo Springs by A.M. Dellamonica
Blood and Ice by Robert Masello
I also have a stack of brand new library books which I haven't read yet.
They are:
Waking the Witch by Kelley Armstrong
The Great Tree of Avalon by T.A. Barron
The Man with the Golden Torc by Simon R. Green
Ghost Shadow by Heather Graham
Chalice by Robin McKinley
The Shape Changer's Wife by Sharon Shinn
-------------------------------------------------------
Blood and Ice was a vampire story. Basically two British vampire lovers get chained together and thrown overboard by a hostile nautical crew near the South Pole in the last century and are frozen solid until modern day South Pole researchers find them, bring them up, thaw them, and then have to deal with the consequences. An interesting setting, full of fascinating tidbits about what the flora and fauna of the South Pole is like, and historical data as well. Obviously a lot of research work was done to write this book.
Indigo Springs was a dark fantasy story filled with magickal forces, magickal creatures, magickal transformations, and the eternal battle between human good and evil. There were some interesting character developments in this novel. I particularly liked the main female character Astrid who is quite complex and conflicted in many ways and on many levels, including her bisexuality. Very imaginative and creative. Not just your average night of simple entertainment novel. I would read more of her work if I could get my hands on it. A.M. Dellamonica's (who by the way is a Canadian gal living in B.C. with her wife Kelly Robson) next novel in progress is called The Wintergirls. I will be keeping an eye out for it.
Ok. "It is a dark and stormy night". Environment Canada has just issued a heavy rain warning. Sounds like the perfect night to dig my head deep into a nice juicy book. Waking The Witch is my first choice of course!
Right now I've just got two already read books left out of my latest stack of novels that I haven't returned to the library yet. They are:
Indigo Springs by A.M. Dellamonica
Blood and Ice by Robert Masello
I also have a stack of brand new library books which I haven't read yet.
They are:
Waking the Witch by Kelley Armstrong
The Great Tree of Avalon by T.A. Barron
The Man with the Golden Torc by Simon R. Green
Ghost Shadow by Heather Graham
Chalice by Robin McKinley
The Shape Changer's Wife by Sharon Shinn
-------------------------------------------------------
Blood and Ice was a vampire story. Basically two British vampire lovers get chained together and thrown overboard by a hostile nautical crew near the South Pole in the last century and are frozen solid until modern day South Pole researchers find them, bring them up, thaw them, and then have to deal with the consequences. An interesting setting, full of fascinating tidbits about what the flora and fauna of the South Pole is like, and historical data as well. Obviously a lot of research work was done to write this book.
Indigo Springs was a dark fantasy story filled with magickal forces, magickal creatures, magickal transformations, and the eternal battle between human good and evil. There were some interesting character developments in this novel. I particularly liked the main female character Astrid who is quite complex and conflicted in many ways and on many levels, including her bisexuality. Very imaginative and creative. Not just your average night of simple entertainment novel. I would read more of her work if I could get my hands on it. A.M. Dellamonica's (who by the way is a Canadian gal living in B.C. with her wife Kelly Robson) next novel in progress is called The Wintergirls. I will be keeping an eye out for it.
Ok. "It is a dark and stormy night". Environment Canada has just issued a heavy rain warning. Sounds like the perfect night to dig my head deep into a nice juicy book. Waking The Witch is my first choice of course!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)