Author Archives: James - Page 76
Book Review – Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch
Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch My rating: 5 of 5 stars A change in direction for the Peter Grant series. Peter's out of London and without his mentor Nightingale. As well as this the story is one of two missing children, which adds an urgency to the pace of events. As you'd expect there is a strong supernatural element to the story, with an interesting twist in it. Only Peter and Beverley Brook really feature through the story, Nightingale bookends it and there is minor contact with Dr Walid at one point. All the rest of the characters are locals from West Mercia. Out on his own Peter develops as a character. He's a lot more self-reliant and capable, he doesn't have any magical backup so deals with what he finds himself. The background is also expanded a bit, Peter…
Remembrance Challenge
We took our cubs to the local war memorial in the Church near the Scout Hall as part of our own remembrance challenge. Before we went the cubs each made a wreath of poppies and wrote a message on it. Each boy did his own personal wreath. We then walked to the Church where we spoke about why we remember, and how different things were in 1914. South Merstham wasn't as big then as it is now, the new houses were mostly built in the 1950s. In the 1911 census there were around 600 men in the locality. About 150 of whom signed up in August 1914. (I'm guessing some would be unfit, others in jobs that couldn't just go off to war and some others not that keen). @N04/15767315095/ Remembrance Challenge The remembrance challenge was to find out as much as…
Meeting the Bechdel Test
I first came across the Bechdel Test on Charles Stross's blog when he was discussing its importance for pushing gender equality in fiction. However what has prompted this post is this article on Rochelle Dean's blog about her current work in progress. Since becoming aware of the Bechdel test I have consciously tried to meet the spirit of it in all the stuff I write, and as much as I can the actual conditions too. The Bechdel Test The rules There are three rules to the test: There are at least two named female characters in the story The women have a conversation with each other The conversation should not be about a man The Spirit of the Bechdel Test What I think is most important though is meeting the spirit of the test, which as I understand is that there should…
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Not Dead, But Dreaming…
...of a time when I'm not out at work for over twelve hours a day. Blogging, and just about everything else, has taken a hit the last couple of months. I've been too tired to lug my laptop on the train and have either read or slept on most of my commuting journeys. Even my week off over half term was fraught with doing stuff which was work related as well as trying to cram in an OU assignment without it getting in the way of a family holiday. Anyway, there may be light ahead. Although I expect that it is just a brief pause before the festive season kicks in. Maybe I'll get some writing time that isn't either a TMA or work.
Reader Perspectives
Following on from my review of Rayne Hall's book about ways to increase your book sales I thought I might spend a few minutes reflecting on how I, as a reader, find new books to read. What do I read? You can see the details over on my Goodreads shelf, my 2014 Challenge was to read 50 books this year (numerically slightly down on last year, but 12 parts of John Scalzi's Human Division counted as 12 on goodreads when it was really just a single serialised novel (and I really enjoyed it). So my reading is divided into three broad categories, I read easy fiction for escape and enjoyment, histories for a better understanding of why and how we got here, and course related material for the Open University degree that I am doing. Typically the heavier the degree module…