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Books
Adam of Bremen: Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum
It's interesting, seeing something as well-known and well-mapped as Scandinavia being shown as mysterious, wild and still getting explored (and apparently we had amazons and dogheaded people (and they apparently had each other...)). Also, I find his references to travel time in Scandinavia interesting - admittedly, he never travelled himself, but one of his primary sources was the Danish king Svend Estridsen, so - anyway, most journeys seem relatively short. Even at sea. Which basically confirms the general idea I had formed already (mostly from how Havhingsten fra Glendalough took six weeks (incl. several stops) to get from Roskilde to Dublin, so going from Norway to Lindisfarne, even if you didn't know where exactly you're going, is not going to be a matter of several weeks. It's not a short jaunt, but neither is it going to take months - for crying out loud, England is right there?!
Jussi Adler-Olsen: Kvinden i buret
I don't get the hype. Oh, it's a perfectly decent novel and I want to read the sequels, but I've read so many better books, too. Also, having read this, I really don't want to see the movie - the main character reads as an arsehole and I have no desire to watch him (though I suspect Nikolaj Lie Kaas is well cast, and that's not a compliment).
Peter Adolphsen: År 9 efter Loopet
And my mind is now imagining post-Awakening support groups for Mark's victims forming...
Alan K. Baker: The Feaster From The Stars
Patricia Briggs: Dragon Blood
I find it somewhat ironic, the difference between the treatment of homosexuality in this series and in Richard Morgan's books. RM's books are full of crude terminology (he really should find something other than faggot, if for no other reason than variety) and societies with nasty, nasty ways of treating homosexuals. Patricia Briggs, on the other hand - the only conversation about it in this books actually uses the word homosexual (which is another rant entirely) and while some random non-characters are portrayed as uneasy about it, there doesn't seem to be any wide-spread nastiness.
So, you'd think PB's books would be the better ones, right? Except no, not really - RM has several queer characters - Ringil and Archeth, for instance - and they are pretty tough (they have to be - it's that sort of world), but thing is, their homosexuality is just one aspect of them, not the end all and be all - it has influenced them, sure, or rather, how society has reacted has influenced them, but at the end of the day, they are just people (awesome, dragon slaying, heroic people) who happen to be queer and both of RM's novels has plenty of both nice and nasty queer characters besides (mostly male - though that might just be Ringil being a bit of a, well, nevermind). PB, on the other hand - well, the conversation I mentioned above. The guy involved is a fellow named Garranon and the thing is - I really don't read him as gay or even bisexual. Not really. See, as a child, Garranon ended up a hostage after his noble father was part of a failed rebellion against the evil king (evil, oppressive, nasty, evil king). Now, among his other evil traits, the evil king is a pedophile - so he took Garranon and he put a spell on him to make sure he couldn't leave and then, well. The novels are set about twenty years later and Garranon is a courtier and the king's lover - and has secretly worked against him. He has a wife he loves and a child, but he keeps being called back to the king's presence, still a hostage, basically - and we're told how he hates it and yet doesn't, how he hates that he enjoys the physical aspects and honestly? At the end of the day. I don't read Garranon as gay or even bisexual. I do read him as spectacularly fucked up - oh, and apart from Garranon, the only person shown not to be ordinarily heterosexual is said evil king...
Patricia Briggs: River Marked
Why do these urban fantasy heroines always turn out to be superspecial even by supernatural standards?
Stefan Brink: Vikingarnas slavar: den nordiska träldomen under yngre järnalder och äldsta medeltid
And to conclude, Ragnar is surprisingly nice to Athelstan. Let's him keep his name, doesn't beat him or slice his nostrils open or rape him or sell him to slave traders to take south or anything. Right, anyway, it's an interesting book - the author spends a lot of time pointing out how slavery and slaves have been different things at different times and the Viking age being an oral culture, we don't actually have any decent contemporary sources for something like slavery, just outside descriptions of a few things and sagas and medieval law collections. Anyway, interesting points: one of the different sorts of slaves were the bryte, who was a slave (except when he wasn't), but also seems to have been basically an administrator, who someone powerful could put to run a farm, for instance. You know, like when Ragnar and Lagertha leave Athelstan in charge of the farm...
Anyway, out of all the things to latch on to, my mind sort of likes the whole: slave owners might have made a habit of giving slaves new names. If I ever get around to writing the AU fic where Athelstan doesn't speak Norse, but Ragnar takes him for his slave anyway (and I probably won't, because I think I'd want to write it from Athelstan's POV and my grasp of Old Norse limits itself to looking up the very occasional individual word - though I suppose I could make it work, but I digress), I think I'll have Ragnar call Athelstan Mouse. He's kind of like a mouse, isn't he? *grins, pets Athelstan*
Er der spor? Feminisme, aktivisme og kønsforskning gennem et halvt århundrede
The chapter I found most interesting was the one about how, some fifty years ago, girls were considered the losers of the educational system - because they were "too quiet". Now they've caught up with and even in some areas left the boys far behind - only for the rhetoric nowadays to be all about how terrible it is for the poor, poor boys, who are "too wild" for the "feminized" school. *rolls eyes*
Ian C. Esslemont: Blood and Bone: A Novel of the Malazan Empire
F. Scott Fitzgerald: Fortællinger fra jazztiden
Johannes L. Howard: Johannes Cabal the Necromancer
I liked Horst. Well, and Johannes - a bit. But mostly Horst. You gotta like a vampire who asks his brother (as said brother is busily running away to avoid getting bitten) if it's the homoerotic aspects that's bothering him. Anyway, what annoyed me, though, was that I never quite could place this in time - it feels sort of adrift, if that makes any sense. Eventually, I guessed at present day, except it doesn't feel like it. Not quite.
Judith Jesch: Women in the Viking Age
Interesting. My only real complaint is that the book is more than 20 years old (admittedly, there's a new edition in 2005 according to Amazon, but a 9 pages differences doesn't leave me suspecting any large-scale revisions), and frankly, I can't believe there isn't material for someone to write a new book about old Norse women. On a more unrealistic complaint - dammit, when is the book about Viking gender views and the relationship between men and women, shield maidens and ergi ever getting writ (answer: never. Lack of sources. Bloody oral cultures...)
Anyway, random fun fact: according to 10th century traveller Ibrâhîm ibn Ya`qûb, who apparently visited Hedeby, apparently both men and women there wore an articially produced eye-make-up to improve their beauty. Which of course made me think of Floki. :-)
Kvindestudier: seks bidrag
M.D. Lachlan: Wolfsangel
I didn't quite like this. I mean, it's vikings and werewolves, it's right up my alley, right? And it has some decent characters and a fairly interesting version of Loki and I rather liked the bit with the hero drowning himself in a sacred pond to get visions from the gods. But, but, but - is it odd that I find stories making up random new groups of Norse annoying, blending the real geography of places like Hedeby? Probably. I mean, there's werewolves, why do I expect any realism?
Richard Morgan: The Cold Commands
Jesper Finne Nielsen: Asteria
Britt-Mari Näsström: Bärsärkarna: vikingatidens elitsoldater
Lars Ahn Pedersen: Månebase Rødhætte og andre SF noveller
My favourite among this short stories, I think, must be Kongens nytårstale - shaped as the King of Denmark's new year's speak, where he mostly focuses on the fact that in the coming year some Dane is going to invent time travel - and as the story unfolds we gradually see more and more points where time travel, unbeknownst to the speaker, has already affected the time line. Also, I find the universe of Månebase Rødhætte interesting (basically, werewolves are real, have broken their masquerade and are now colonizing the moon), though the ending, where the complicated space pilot heroine with a complicated (and not exactly positive) relationship to her werewolf employers chooses to become one, felt, well, unsatisfactory.
Elizabeth Peters: The Curse of the Pharaohs
Skjoldungernes saga
Which for obvious reasons isn't the real Skjöldunga saga (though wouldn't that be cool?), but rather a collection of other medieval, Icelandic writings put together to basically attempt to reconstruct it. It's a proper Viking story for certain, with great battles (including the greatest of them all - and what does it say of the old Norse, when their epic battle with everyone involved wasn't because of stolen women launching thousands ships, but most of all for the sake of having a bloody big battle?), murder, strife, random werebears, incest - as we trace the occasionally branching family tree of the Skjöldungar from Skjold himself, son of Odin and all, down through this Ragnar Lothbrok fellow you might have heard about lately and on to Gorm the Old (according to Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, Ragnar is Gorm's great grandfather, making him a direct ancestor of the current Danish monarch (and the Norwegian - and the English - and the ex-Greek - and the...) Of course, how reliable that is - probably not that very. Anyway...
Charles Stross: The Merchants' War
Comics
Yasuke Aoike: From Eroica With Love vol. 13.
Yasuke Aoike: From Eroica With Love vol. 14.
Sussi Bech & Mette Finderup: Tænk på signalværdien!
Warren Ellis: Black Summer
Warren Ellis: Crécy
Warren Ellis: Freakangels vol. 5.
Warren Ellis: Freakangels vol. 6.
Don't get me wrong, I know that stories should end and it's a decent enough ending and all - but I still want a sequel ;-)
Warren Ellis: Supergod
And because I'm predictable, I came away from this kinda shipping Krishna/Jerry Craven...
Jean van Hamme: XIII: L'Or de Maximilien
Yukito Kishiro: Battle Angel Alita: Rusty Angel
Yukito Kishiro: Battle Angel Alita: Tears of an Angel
Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato: The Flash: Move Forward
Peter Milligan: Justice League Dark: In The Dark
I can't quite make up my mind about this one. On one hand, it takes a bunch of characters who usually hang out in the Vertigo part of DC and turn them into a superhero team (seriously? John Constantine on a superhero team?). On the other hand, it isn't exactly superheroes and it takes plenty of time showing how these guys aren't usually teamplayers. Still, it just feels - odd?
Palle Schmidt: Stiletto
Yana Toboso: Black Butler vol. 6.
Yana Toboso: Black Butler vol. 7.
Petri Tolppanen: Sarasvatin hiekkaa (graphic novel)
It's a bit too convenient, isn't it, for the scientists to be discovering the real Atlantis and how it ended, just before modern civilization goes the same way? Way too convenient...
Total number of books and comics read this month: 38
Currently reading: none - unless you count podcasts, in which case I'm impatiently waiting for today's episode of Welcome to Night Vale
Adam of Bremen: Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum
It's interesting, seeing something as well-known and well-mapped as Scandinavia being shown as mysterious, wild and still getting explored (and apparently we had amazons and dogheaded people (and they apparently had each other...)). Also, I find his references to travel time in Scandinavia interesting - admittedly, he never travelled himself, but one of his primary sources was the Danish king Svend Estridsen, so - anyway, most journeys seem relatively short. Even at sea. Which basically confirms the general idea I had formed already (mostly from how Havhingsten fra Glendalough took six weeks (incl. several stops) to get from Roskilde to Dublin, so going from Norway to Lindisfarne, even if you didn't know where exactly you're going, is not going to be a matter of several weeks. It's not a short jaunt, but neither is it going to take months - for crying out loud, England is right there?!
Jussi Adler-Olsen: Kvinden i buret
I don't get the hype. Oh, it's a perfectly decent novel and I want to read the sequels, but I've read so many better books, too. Also, having read this, I really don't want to see the movie - the main character reads as an arsehole and I have no desire to watch him (though I suspect Nikolaj Lie Kaas is well cast, and that's not a compliment).
Peter Adolphsen: År 9 efter Loopet
And my mind is now imagining post-Awakening support groups for Mark's victims forming...
Alan K. Baker: The Feaster From The Stars
Patricia Briggs: Dragon Blood
I find it somewhat ironic, the difference between the treatment of homosexuality in this series and in Richard Morgan's books. RM's books are full of crude terminology (he really should find something other than faggot, if for no other reason than variety) and societies with nasty, nasty ways of treating homosexuals. Patricia Briggs, on the other hand - the only conversation about it in this books actually uses the word homosexual (which is another rant entirely) and while some random non-characters are portrayed as uneasy about it, there doesn't seem to be any wide-spread nastiness.
So, you'd think PB's books would be the better ones, right? Except no, not really - RM has several queer characters - Ringil and Archeth, for instance - and they are pretty tough (they have to be - it's that sort of world), but thing is, their homosexuality is just one aspect of them, not the end all and be all - it has influenced them, sure, or rather, how society has reacted has influenced them, but at the end of the day, they are just people (awesome, dragon slaying, heroic people) who happen to be queer and both of RM's novels has plenty of both nice and nasty queer characters besides (mostly male - though that might just be Ringil being a bit of a, well, nevermind). PB, on the other hand - well, the conversation I mentioned above. The guy involved is a fellow named Garranon and the thing is - I really don't read him as gay or even bisexual. Not really. See, as a child, Garranon ended up a hostage after his noble father was part of a failed rebellion against the evil king (evil, oppressive, nasty, evil king). Now, among his other evil traits, the evil king is a pedophile - so he took Garranon and he put a spell on him to make sure he couldn't leave and then, well. The novels are set about twenty years later and Garranon is a courtier and the king's lover - and has secretly worked against him. He has a wife he loves and a child, but he keeps being called back to the king's presence, still a hostage, basically - and we're told how he hates it and yet doesn't, how he hates that he enjoys the physical aspects and honestly? At the end of the day. I don't read Garranon as gay or even bisexual. I do read him as spectacularly fucked up - oh, and apart from Garranon, the only person shown not to be ordinarily heterosexual is said evil king...
Patricia Briggs: River Marked
Why do these urban fantasy heroines always turn out to be superspecial even by supernatural standards?
Stefan Brink: Vikingarnas slavar: den nordiska träldomen under yngre järnalder och äldsta medeltid
And to conclude, Ragnar is surprisingly nice to Athelstan. Let's him keep his name, doesn't beat him or slice his nostrils open or rape him or sell him to slave traders to take south or anything. Right, anyway, it's an interesting book - the author spends a lot of time pointing out how slavery and slaves have been different things at different times and the Viking age being an oral culture, we don't actually have any decent contemporary sources for something like slavery, just outside descriptions of a few things and sagas and medieval law collections. Anyway, interesting points: one of the different sorts of slaves were the bryte, who was a slave (except when he wasn't), but also seems to have been basically an administrator, who someone powerful could put to run a farm, for instance. You know, like when Ragnar and Lagertha leave Athelstan in charge of the farm...
Anyway, out of all the things to latch on to, my mind sort of likes the whole: slave owners might have made a habit of giving slaves new names. If I ever get around to writing the AU fic where Athelstan doesn't speak Norse, but Ragnar takes him for his slave anyway (and I probably won't, because I think I'd want to write it from Athelstan's POV and my grasp of Old Norse limits itself to looking up the very occasional individual word - though I suppose I could make it work, but I digress), I think I'll have Ragnar call Athelstan Mouse. He's kind of like a mouse, isn't he? *grins, pets Athelstan*
Er der spor? Feminisme, aktivisme og kønsforskning gennem et halvt århundrede
The chapter I found most interesting was the one about how, some fifty years ago, girls were considered the losers of the educational system - because they were "too quiet". Now they've caught up with and even in some areas left the boys far behind - only for the rhetoric nowadays to be all about how terrible it is for the poor, poor boys, who are "too wild" for the "feminized" school. *rolls eyes*
Ian C. Esslemont: Blood and Bone: A Novel of the Malazan Empire
F. Scott Fitzgerald: Fortællinger fra jazztiden
Johannes L. Howard: Johannes Cabal the Necromancer
I liked Horst. Well, and Johannes - a bit. But mostly Horst. You gotta like a vampire who asks his brother (as said brother is busily running away to avoid getting bitten) if it's the homoerotic aspects that's bothering him. Anyway, what annoyed me, though, was that I never quite could place this in time - it feels sort of adrift, if that makes any sense. Eventually, I guessed at present day, except it doesn't feel like it. Not quite.
Judith Jesch: Women in the Viking Age
Interesting. My only real complaint is that the book is more than 20 years old (admittedly, there's a new edition in 2005 according to Amazon, but a 9 pages differences doesn't leave me suspecting any large-scale revisions), and frankly, I can't believe there isn't material for someone to write a new book about old Norse women. On a more unrealistic complaint - dammit, when is the book about Viking gender views and the relationship between men and women, shield maidens and ergi ever getting writ (answer: never. Lack of sources. Bloody oral cultures...)
Anyway, random fun fact: according to 10th century traveller Ibrâhîm ibn Ya`qûb, who apparently visited Hedeby, apparently both men and women there wore an articially produced eye-make-up to improve their beauty. Which of course made me think of Floki. :-)
Kvindestudier: seks bidrag
M.D. Lachlan: Wolfsangel
I didn't quite like this. I mean, it's vikings and werewolves, it's right up my alley, right? And it has some decent characters and a fairly interesting version of Loki and I rather liked the bit with the hero drowning himself in a sacred pond to get visions from the gods. But, but, but - is it odd that I find stories making up random new groups of Norse annoying, blending the real geography of places like Hedeby? Probably. I mean, there's werewolves, why do I expect any realism?
Richard Morgan: The Cold Commands
Jesper Finne Nielsen: Asteria
Britt-Mari Näsström: Bärsärkarna: vikingatidens elitsoldater
Lars Ahn Pedersen: Månebase Rødhætte og andre SF noveller
My favourite among this short stories, I think, must be Kongens nytårstale - shaped as the King of Denmark's new year's speak, where he mostly focuses on the fact that in the coming year some Dane is going to invent time travel - and as the story unfolds we gradually see more and more points where time travel, unbeknownst to the speaker, has already affected the time line. Also, I find the universe of Månebase Rødhætte interesting (basically, werewolves are real, have broken their masquerade and are now colonizing the moon), though the ending, where the complicated space pilot heroine with a complicated (and not exactly positive) relationship to her werewolf employers chooses to become one, felt, well, unsatisfactory.
Elizabeth Peters: The Curse of the Pharaohs
Skjoldungernes saga
Which for obvious reasons isn't the real Skjöldunga saga (though wouldn't that be cool?), but rather a collection of other medieval, Icelandic writings put together to basically attempt to reconstruct it. It's a proper Viking story for certain, with great battles (including the greatest of them all - and what does it say of the old Norse, when their epic battle with everyone involved wasn't because of stolen women launching thousands ships, but most of all for the sake of having a bloody big battle?), murder, strife, random werebears, incest - as we trace the occasionally branching family tree of the Skjöldungar from Skjold himself, son of Odin and all, down through this Ragnar Lothbrok fellow you might have heard about lately and on to Gorm the Old (according to Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, Ragnar is Gorm's great grandfather, making him a direct ancestor of the current Danish monarch (and the Norwegian - and the English - and the ex-Greek - and the...) Of course, how reliable that is - probably not that very. Anyway...
Charles Stross: The Merchants' War
Comics
Yasuke Aoike: From Eroica With Love vol. 13.
Yasuke Aoike: From Eroica With Love vol. 14.
Sussi Bech & Mette Finderup: Tænk på signalværdien!
Warren Ellis: Black Summer
Warren Ellis: Crécy
Warren Ellis: Freakangels vol. 5.
Warren Ellis: Freakangels vol. 6.
Don't get me wrong, I know that stories should end and it's a decent enough ending and all - but I still want a sequel ;-)
Warren Ellis: Supergod
And because I'm predictable, I came away from this kinda shipping Krishna/Jerry Craven...
Jean van Hamme: XIII: L'Or de Maximilien
Yukito Kishiro: Battle Angel Alita: Rusty Angel
Yukito Kishiro: Battle Angel Alita: Tears of an Angel
Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato: The Flash: Move Forward
Peter Milligan: Justice League Dark: In The Dark
I can't quite make up my mind about this one. On one hand, it takes a bunch of characters who usually hang out in the Vertigo part of DC and turn them into a superhero team (seriously? John Constantine on a superhero team?). On the other hand, it isn't exactly superheroes and it takes plenty of time showing how these guys aren't usually teamplayers. Still, it just feels - odd?
Palle Schmidt: Stiletto
Yana Toboso: Black Butler vol. 6.
Yana Toboso: Black Butler vol. 7.
Petri Tolppanen: Sarasvatin hiekkaa (graphic novel)
It's a bit too convenient, isn't it, for the scientists to be discovering the real Atlantis and how it ended, just before modern civilization goes the same way? Way too convenient...
Total number of books and comics read this month: 38
Currently reading: none - unless you count podcasts, in which case I'm impatiently waiting for today's episode of Welcome to Night Vale
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