fall of the christian empire

read romanitas by Sophia Mcdougall atypical type of "rome never fell" novel not as good as robert silverbergs roma eterna and with a lot of these books the timeline and map are the best part
the early history of the empire and its expansion in India onward to china and then finding america where over the centuries the roman empire engages in a hot/ cold war with the Japanese(the Nionians) better story basis than this dull tale of runaway heir to the empire and using latin names for things like television and aeroplanes
actually originally filed under historical novels alongside ben kane and christian jacq

jamrachs menagerie mainly a drifting shipwreck story and early voyage to capture a komodo dragon
A history of pain torture and punishment throughout history interwting for anyone who wants to know that the Romans had four types of whip lots of woodcuts of racking and burning but it was the medieval period so everyone had to be guilty
history of SETI still waiting for the signal possibly because all nearby planets ie tau ceti have no planetary system or like epsilon eridani the lifeforms are as wise as goldfish

Inanna's boat

My dreams are colours, at first beyond

Then foul spaces

In a need of a teller

One way myth

My low travel forming of the way

Redding bright

A sun bone ancient

Blind goddess barely nude

wrote this in under two minutes

library tristan gooleys the natural navigator navigating by the sand dunes, sun,stars, moom , waves, wind and shdows brought back memories of my making a micronesian star compass (not yet useful in north west england I admit) and a sun compass if i had a big enough garden i would make a rock star compass showing the direction of the rising and falling of stars in my neighbourhod

six feet over a journey in serach of the soul looking at scientfic experiments, mediums fake and real,spectral infrasound OBEs and EVP

crime and punisment in victorian england- nothing i like more than a damned good hanging its make justice worthwhile

Passage by john morley long incredibly detailed picacaresque novel about the life of a 500 year old man from livng as a white captive of natives in the post columbian earthy paradise to 17th century colonial brazil , pre civil war new orleans, chicago of the worlds fair and onto freakshows , early hollywood and post war las vegas

life on other planets and other evolved life

Despite being an IT tutor I used the internet this week looking for the new Dinosaurs by dougal Dixon couldn't even get it at amazon at decent price
looking around i found a online scanned version of the whole book on http://www.sivatherium.narod.ru/library/Dixon_2/00_en.htm#fore
contain my excitement !!
reading the book online i found it to be mainly dinosaur shaped modern animals lots of giraffe and din0-lope like grazers, ocean life shows dino-penquins and pliosaur whales
interesting is that what life is like on another world?

i had watched the series the future is wild years ago and knew it was based on a book called after man but this seemed out of print
yet again the russian website had a scanned version which shows completely different evolved rats and monkeys fronm the series
reminds me of the old joke what do you call a creature the size of a mouse that has a natural sixth sense to predict the future ? answer the dominant species on planet Earth!

I also remembered a website on exoplanets i looked at in 2007 and found it online many such computer art sites showing computer generated sunrise and sunset views of alien worlds mainly worlds cold and shining -two of my bryce 5.5 created examples above

had the feeling that any aliens looking towards earth will be not waving but mooning at us

God non sum zero

read robert wrights evolution of God strange to see quotes form antique seminal sourses such as edward tylor, rudolf otto and karen armstrong rather old idea fashioned of primitive religion using unrelated polynesian example for stone age religion and 19th travellers tales for shamanisn
wright also uses a laboured microsoft versus apple metraphor for rise of christianity versus mystery relgions this is nercifully only laboured in one section
wright is famed for his non sum zero interdependence idea for rise of religion re abrahamic religions and the jargon shows in this book

vacher the french ripper the late 19th vagabond itinereant who murdered peasants in rural france good read also asides on adavances in forensics and detection
annabelle lyons the golden mean - yet another "young alexander the great" novel detailing aristotle's time in macedon where he teaches both alexander and alexanders disabled older brother
fire from heaven anyone a better read from the young alexander the great detective side kick to aristotle the investigator from a margaret doodys 1978 aristotle detective to murder in thebes
smart storm - using insects and birds as examples of social programming form locust crowd control to honeybee council meetings and ant problem solving systems

egyptian mysteries

library read ethan gage novel napoleons pyramids fast moving tough guy meets european villain and exotic women based around napoleons 1798 expedition to egypt it involved lost pyramid treasure chambers and guardians from a still surviving ancient egyptian masonic Isis cult
ends with hero floating off in balloon first of series if anyone is interested
Siege by jack hight "who has MA and is doing his doctorate" one of the many novels about the 1453 siege of constantinople, read like any other medieval war novel even including a typical heroric commander and his band of medival men at arms stereotypes with counter plot of everyday life in the harem and fictional sultana conspiracies

Hights siege novel reminded me of my early byzantine novel "muscovy Kill" about the sultan despatching an assassin to moscow to assasinate princess Zoe Palaiologina before she marries grand duke Ivan III
a little too like in characterisation and plot even more that muscovy kill was created when I was ten years old and I had forgotten all about it until I read Hight!

norse myth a guide, updated version in modern english of the prose and poetic eddas never really realised that the norse gods spent most of their time on morose journeys
age of wonder by richard holmes a good history of late 18th century scientists from ballooning to frankenstein truly great scientists all fortunate to be contemporaries , something that cannot be said about todays science lacking in great science
wrote two mystical poems one beginning either God is there or not God who said that first ?