Reading Wednesday
Feb. 26th, 2014 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
What did you finish reading
Die Upon A Kiss, by Barbara Hambly: Go ahead, break my heart, why don't you? Opera! Rose taking great pleasure in blowing shit up! Olympe! Peanuts! How badass is Jocelyn? And Drusilla has nerves of fucking steel, I wear, wow. Ben kissed Rose! Oh ben, what are we going to do with you? You could have asked. Shaw at the opera! (Also, I might be shipping Shaw/Hannibal, a little. I don't even know! I'm not complaining.) Things on fire! Pretty sure Ben is being trolled by his landlady, ngl. He's definitely getting trolled by Minou in places. I always get a thrill when characters from previous books show up in subsequent ones: Cora! Gervase! Having a life that involves being successful and not tortured! the Widow Redfern! Still not remarried! How many languages does Ben speak, seriously? i counted at least five: French, englih, spanish, Italian, Latin and at least a little German and Arabic. (Ayasha! She only appears in flashbacks, but she's so amazing; "A desert witch somehow masquerading as a Parisian dressmaker.") Othello being a great opera, but "all anyone will see is a black man kissing a white woman and killing her", ouch. Ben's stage-fright is adorable. Also Hannibal has a STRAD? Like, an actual Stradivarius, what.
What are you reading now
Wet Grave, by Barbara Hambly: The opening sentence has pirates. That is all. (Things I want from this book: More Rose! More Hannibal! More Rose + Hannibal! More Minou! More Olympe! More Marie Laveau! Also Kate the Gouger and Kentucky Williams, they're hilarious.)
The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff: I'm a couple of pages off from the end. I was very surprised by the pacing, honestly. They only cross the Wall at the halfway point. Marcus as a medicine-peddler is hilarious to me for some reason. They had a good plan to get the Eagle back, but I wonder if there's any truth to the Eagle's wings being detachable?
Hannibal's Odyssey, by William Mahaney: Hey publishers! When having a book that refers to colour-coded maps, it would be nice if said maps were not printed in black-and-white.
What are you reading next
All the Benjamin January book, still and Indexing by Seanan Mcguire, on
umadoshi 's reccomendation.
Die Upon A Kiss, by Barbara Hambly: Go ahead, break my heart, why don't you? Opera! Rose taking great pleasure in blowing shit up! Olympe! Peanuts! How badass is Jocelyn? And Drusilla has nerves of fucking steel, I wear, wow. Ben kissed Rose! Oh ben, what are we going to do with you? You could have asked. Shaw at the opera! (Also, I might be shipping Shaw/Hannibal, a little. I don't even know! I'm not complaining.) Things on fire! Pretty sure Ben is being trolled by his landlady, ngl. He's definitely getting trolled by Minou in places. I always get a thrill when characters from previous books show up in subsequent ones: Cora! Gervase! Having a life that involves being successful and not tortured! the Widow Redfern! Still not remarried! How many languages does Ben speak, seriously? i counted at least five: French, englih, spanish, Italian, Latin and at least a little German and Arabic. (Ayasha! She only appears in flashbacks, but she's so amazing; "A desert witch somehow masquerading as a Parisian dressmaker.") Othello being a great opera, but "all anyone will see is a black man kissing a white woman and killing her", ouch. Ben's stage-fright is adorable. Also Hannibal has a STRAD? Like, an actual Stradivarius, what.
What are you reading now
Wet Grave, by Barbara Hambly: The opening sentence has pirates. That is all. (Things I want from this book: More Rose! More Hannibal! More Rose + Hannibal! More Minou! More Olympe! More Marie Laveau! Also Kate the Gouger and Kentucky Williams, they're hilarious.)
The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff: I'm a couple of pages off from the end. I was very surprised by the pacing, honestly. They only cross the Wall at the halfway point. Marcus as a medicine-peddler is hilarious to me for some reason. They had a good plan to get the Eagle back, but I wonder if there's any truth to the Eagle's wings being detachable?
Hannibal's Odyssey, by William Mahaney: Hey publishers! When having a book that refers to colour-coded maps, it would be nice if said maps were not printed in black-and-white.
What are you reading next
All the Benjamin January book, still and Indexing by Seanan Mcguire, on
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-02-27 03:05 am (UTC)IIRC Sutcliff based the plot of the story on the fact that there was a wingless Eagle dug up in Calleva/Silchester. (I have misplaced the site with the pictures, but it looks kind of... hilariously chickeny.) At the time she (and possibly current consensus) thought that it was a legionary standard, but I think now they think it isn't. So basically, uh, I don't know if they ordinarily have detachable wings, but the one she based the story on did. All I know about the actual standards is that they're small enough to hide in your clothing -- I vaguely recall reading it in Suetonius' Life of Caesar. I think that was the book.
Also if you think Marcus' disguise is hilarious you owe it to yourself to watch the 1977 BBC miniseries adaptation of the book, which has his stupid oculist hat in all its stupid glory, for approximately half of the series.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-02-28 12:30 am (UTC)That sounds hilarious, thank you!