Fade > Recent Status Updates

This book, people. This book! It has puns and a witty discussion of pronunciation and it's making a really compelling case about how to interpret the genitive object of various verbs. I want to hold it and squeeze it and love it forever, and I must write this author fanmail when I'm done.

So far this is a lot of Serious Dudes dealing with Serious Dude Business, plus a bonus Sad Dead Wife In Memories. I'll give it a few more chapters and see if it gets any better.

I'm loving the multi-PoV shift in this book, but my god, I am drowning in the names. At this point I just assume if they're important, they'll come up again with enough context to help me remember who's who.

More about language theory and personal anecdote than I expected, but at least it eventually gets around to discussing actual dog language interpretation.

The characters are 2D at best, the prose clunks, events are built of cliches... and yet I'm utterly hooked. Huh. Go figure.

A casual reference to the epic of Gilgamesh that unites its myth with the minotaur? SO MUCH LITERARY JOY. Just when I thought I couldn't love this book any harder than I already do.

You know how much I'm enjoying this book?

So much that I cannot possibly explain it coherently. That's how much.

Electra is not only the primal goth girl, she's delightfully snide in places.

I have this sinking suspicion that the male romantic lead is going to be the character I hate most so far. He's rich and good-looking and cares nothing for the opinions of others, so...probably. Sigh.

This printing keeps cutting off the first letter of lines. Thiiiis is gonna be a problem when I get to the Greek.

And I don't understand what the first sentence of the introduction even means. This is not a good sign.

Usually I don't even notice fonts in books. I am noticing the fonts here because they're horrid. The English looks like it was written on a typewriter, and the Greek font is so wonky I can barely tell what some of the letters are supposed to be.

This intro has already done wonders for explaining the way the senate worked in Cicero's time. I admire its clarity, and wish someone had explained this stuff sooner.

Why the /hell/ did I never hear about this stuff in my history classes? It seems to be widely known, but I never heard a whisper of it during my education.

The sheer enthusiasm of the author for this material is deeply endearing. Also? Mylodons!

This many books into the series, I'm still not sure what missing stays means, except that it's a sign of a poor crew, poor officer, or poor ship when it happens.

I keep not being sure if I've read this one before or not; it's all wildly unfamiliar, but then I'll suddenly recognize a bit. I guess it's the book I stopped on last time. Maybe?

So far it's clumsy infodump, unlikable characters, and way too much Look At My Enlightened Modern Portrayal Of Ancient Times. Does this actually get good enough to bother with?

So far it's clumsy infodump, unlikable characters, and way too much Look At My Enlightened Modern Portrayal Of Ancient Times. Does this actually get good enough to bother with?

I'm liking the watercolors in this one much better than in the Edinburgh book; they're not half so muddy. Not sure if it's a matter of better reproductions, or that he was painting less (and fewer) rainy scenes.

...

....

....well then.

I suspect that knowing a book inspired by this is effectively giving me spoilers, but that's okay. It's a weird, delightful read.