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mousetrapplingIncludes some spoilers for Doctor Who at the end...
Fiction: Still reading "Memories of Ice" Steven Erikson - this book is building up some of the actual problems of the series. A lot of the action so far has been human scale stuff, empires and rebellions and wars and assassinations. This book starts to shift focus to a larger scale view including questions of why the goddess Burn is sleeping? who or what is the Crippled God? And we're beginning to see how the magic system, the Deck of Dragons and the gods (and Ascendants) are linked.
Non-fiction: Still reading "The Making of the Middle Sea", Cyprian Broodbank - rounding out the chapter on 5500-3500 BCE looking at the Levant which is in a unique position both geographically having contact with several other cultural groupings and also having developed farming earlier was now beginning to develop more complex farming strategies than the basic suite which was exported so successfully to the rest of the Mediterranean.
Shakespeare: The Comedy of Errors: Act 3 Scenes 1-2; Act 4 Scenes 1-2 - still not really my cup of tea, and not really letting me suspend my disbelief either (surely someone by now would've said SOMETHING that made it clear that one brother was newly arrived from a different town?).
Podcasts: ep 262 of The History of England - continuing Edward VI's reign with Dudley being in the ascendant and gathering Protestant reforms to the religion.
ep 102 of The History of Egypt - telling a story of a diplomatic trip to the Aegean visiting the Mycenaeans in Amenhotep III's time. Based on evidence that there was some diplomatic contact of some kind at this point.
ep 44-52 of The History of China - coming out of the Three Kingdoms and into the 16 Kingdoms period, with a lot of child "emperors" and a lot of regents scheming against each other.
ep 209 of The China History Podcast - the second part of his look at Jewish refugees in China, concentrating on those arriving from Germany, Austria & Eastern Europe during the 1930s.
ep 118 of the History of English - looking at the origins of surnames based on trades that can be traced back to the 14th Century or so.
ep 175 of The History of Byzantium - looking at the Turks who are about to become a threat to the Byzantines during the next part of the narrative (from 1025 CE onward), and why they were moving off the steppes and towards Byzantium.
Sunday Podcast: ep 3 of I, Object - wrapping up by looking at the whys of satirical and rebellious objects, how it's not always an expectation that one will change the world but one will at least have made a statement.
Music: While running I listened to Everything But the Girl "Home Movies", Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip "Angles" and just started the first disc of the "Greatest Mod Ever" compilation. Drowning out a game J was playing so I could concentrate to write I listened to "BBC Music: Christmas Through the Ages" (has a Berlioz piece on it), "Kill Bill Vol. 1" (has a Bernard Herrmann track on it, and is generally always more fun to listen to than I remember) and some of "NOW 32 CD2" (has a Berri track on it, and is generally full of nostalgia and rubbish but fun music).
They Shall Not Grow Old - the Peter Jackson film using WW1 photographs, film footage and voices of veterans to tell the story of the war. The in-war footage was colourised and animated in a way that made it all so much realer. Very well done, and rather sobering.
ep 3 of Origins of Us - Alice Roberts rounding out the series by looking at brain evolution. Good series, I enjoyed re-watching it.
ep 3 of The Hairy Bikers' Asian Adventure - more Thai food (more feeling hungry).
ep 2 of Dynasties - Emperor Penguins this time, and actually rather depressing viewing. I wouldn't want to be a penguin, it seems a life full of hardship and death.
ep 7 of Doctor Who - another episode where the villain was a person who thought that if you just killed enough/the right people then you could make a better world, c.f. the real life tales of Partition as seen in the last episode, the antagonist in the Rosa Parks episode. Liked the multiple fake-outs for who the antagonist was, I really wasn't expecting that of the 6 characters of this episode (including the system as a character) it would turn out to be one of the three sympathetic ones. Also liked that the Doctor pretty much tells us who it'll be at one point but none of us, not even her, figure it out - no-one pays attention to the maintenance worker. Of note that that was the job the system filed the Doctor into only she just decided she didn't want that one. Not so keen on the high body count, all three of the deaths seemed unnecessary and only Charlie got more than a wristslap for it. Did like that it made use of the character backstories again, this series has felt like it's really paying attention to that - this time Ryan's warehouse worker knowledge and Yaz acting like a policewoman when they apprehended Charlie at the end.
Books
Fiction: Still reading "Memories of Ice" Steven Erikson - this book is building up some of the actual problems of the series. A lot of the action so far has been human scale stuff, empires and rebellions and wars and assassinations. This book starts to shift focus to a larger scale view including questions of why the goddess Burn is sleeping? who or what is the Crippled God? And we're beginning to see how the magic system, the Deck of Dragons and the gods (and Ascendants) are linked.
Non-fiction: Still reading "The Making of the Middle Sea", Cyprian Broodbank - rounding out the chapter on 5500-3500 BCE looking at the Levant which is in a unique position both geographically having contact with several other cultural groupings and also having developed farming earlier was now beginning to develop more complex farming strategies than the basic suite which was exported so successfully to the rest of the Mediterranean.
Shakespeare: The Comedy of Errors: Act 3 Scenes 1-2; Act 4 Scenes 1-2 - still not really my cup of tea, and not really letting me suspend my disbelief either (surely someone by now would've said SOMETHING that made it clear that one brother was newly arrived from a different town?).
Listening
Podcasts: ep 262 of The History of England - continuing Edward VI's reign with Dudley being in the ascendant and gathering Protestant reforms to the religion.
ep 102 of The History of Egypt - telling a story of a diplomatic trip to the Aegean visiting the Mycenaeans in Amenhotep III's time. Based on evidence that there was some diplomatic contact of some kind at this point.
ep 44-52 of The History of China - coming out of the Three Kingdoms and into the 16 Kingdoms period, with a lot of child "emperors" and a lot of regents scheming against each other.
ep 209 of The China History Podcast - the second part of his look at Jewish refugees in China, concentrating on those arriving from Germany, Austria & Eastern Europe during the 1930s.
ep 118 of the History of English - looking at the origins of surnames based on trades that can be traced back to the 14th Century or so.
ep 175 of The History of Byzantium - looking at the Turks who are about to become a threat to the Byzantines during the next part of the narrative (from 1025 CE onward), and why they were moving off the steppes and towards Byzantium.
Sunday Podcast: ep 3 of I, Object - wrapping up by looking at the whys of satirical and rebellious objects, how it's not always an expectation that one will change the world but one will at least have made a statement.
Music: While running I listened to Everything But the Girl "Home Movies", Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip "Angles" and just started the first disc of the "Greatest Mod Ever" compilation. Drowning out a game J was playing so I could concentrate to write I listened to "BBC Music: Christmas Through the Ages" (has a Berlioz piece on it), "Kill Bill Vol. 1" (has a Bernard Herrmann track on it, and is generally always more fun to listen to than I remember) and some of "NOW 32 CD2" (has a Berri track on it, and is generally full of nostalgia and rubbish but fun music).
Watching
They Shall Not Grow Old - the Peter Jackson film using WW1 photographs, film footage and voices of veterans to tell the story of the war. The in-war footage was colourised and animated in a way that made it all so much realer. Very well done, and rather sobering.
ep 3 of Origins of Us - Alice Roberts rounding out the series by looking at brain evolution. Good series, I enjoyed re-watching it.
ep 3 of The Hairy Bikers' Asian Adventure - more Thai food (more feeling hungry).
ep 2 of Dynasties - Emperor Penguins this time, and actually rather depressing viewing. I wouldn't want to be a penguin, it seems a life full of hardship and death.
ep 7 of Doctor Who - another episode where the villain was a person who thought that if you just killed enough/the right people then you could make a better world, c.f. the real life tales of Partition as seen in the last episode, the antagonist in the Rosa Parks episode. Liked the multiple fake-outs for who the antagonist was, I really wasn't expecting that of the 6 characters of this episode (including the system as a character) it would turn out to be one of the three sympathetic ones. Also liked that the Doctor pretty much tells us who it'll be at one point but none of us, not even her, figure it out - no-one pays attention to the maintenance worker. Of note that that was the job the system filed the Doctor into only she just decided she didn't want that one. Not so keen on the high body count, all three of the deaths seemed unnecessary and only Charlie got more than a wristslap for it. Did like that it made use of the character backstories again, this series has felt like it's really paying attention to that - this time Ryan's warehouse worker knowledge and Yaz acting like a policewoman when they apprehended Charlie at the end.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-21 21:01 (UTC)