roman in the gloaming

read the siege the first in the promised agent of rome series by nick brown a debut novel whose early chapters made me nostaglic for asterix the gaul a typical roman army action thriller with inexperinced junor commander taking command of a mix of roman legioanairies in harry sidebottom terrority to hold a fort against quen zenobia rather obvious that there were too many red shirt roman solders just waiting for the arrows to fall greatly improved by the ending and made me eager for the sequels

songs of dying earth picked this up thinking it was an anthology of sci fi tales set in a ravaged future earth turned out tribute volume to the dying earth a book by jack vance i had never read a furious jabberwocky of overblown fantasy that constantly reminded me of disneys sword in the stone didn't really miss much by not reading the original vance

city clifford simak another long past 50s sci fi the story of the end of man and the rise of sentient dogs and ant civilizations read to a conclusion

Beacon of Change: How the 1951 Festival of Britain Shaped the Modern Age by barry turner
i have a guide book fro this original exhibition given to me by a elderly next door neighbour who went in 1951 good introduction to the creation and development of this formal black and white festival

new astronomer finds the sky

the skys dark labyrinth by stuart clarke the first of a trilogy about 17th century science this vook tells the story of kepler and galileo better on the chapters wih kepler played out against the events leading up to the thirty years war with astrology obessed emperors, religious hatreds and astronomical egos, galileo less interesting as played out like bad brecht

dracula's guest A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories more one trick pony tales of vampires but much better the victorian vampire at one seiht victorian ghost stories stories byron , varney the vampire, the vampire angel that is the clarimonda seductress is often found in these pages sucking her lover dry even space for vampire scientific papers and transylvania superstitions some great stories all good

the caspian gates book 4 of harry sidebottom series how can he still keep ballista going ?
only brief appearance of the vengeful ghost of the murdered emperor maximinius thrax saying his usual unresolved promise then totally disappearing along with ballista reminding his boon companions of adventures from the first three books more of a rebooted sandal here as ballista finds himself in the conspiracies of a petty dynasty in far colchis and ballista woos a barbarian princess in scenes using prose not out of place in ERB john carter of mars
the inclusion of a new character called mastabates ( i kid you not!) if only to see if any readers are still awake by page 200 roll on book 5 ballista and the crab with the golden claws

Our Most Important Discoveries, Selected by Our Greatest Minds by jheni osman or if oyu cannot get our greatest minds goet some scientists who are also TV presenters a good gerneral reader on all aspects of sceince from space to technolology and the natural world but not realy deep a TV show in print

breaker of the sky

created a webapge to advertise my ebook christopher lantern his midnight name http://sites.google.com/site/marklit247/home by modernising the old poem site and adding video versions of the poems i created on youtube

mentioning video i have been watching star gazing live not really up to much as a show and remembered my astronomy big universe poem created a few galaxy images and put on line http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_MZmOdTCvM

tweeted professor brian cox about it saying his show had inspired it but no reply to my tweet

writing again

amazingly after months of doldrums inspired to write again suddenly out of the blue two new poems posted online comments from peer reviews include

one called a pictorial feast and beautiful write, the other exalted (literally that is what the reviewer called it) as intriguing with wry poignancy have started on my second poetry ebook it only needs a title

library again first this year

read Gavin menzies (1421. 1434) the lost empire of atlantic menzies a former naval officer having failed to find any credible evidence of his ming chinese colonialising america has again found other proto explorers nand the theory that the minoans discovered america in the long time ago BC period basing his information on visits to museums and libraries during holidays abroad and that stand by of the alternative archaelogist casual web search

he as with all such writers puts all the proto theory on the still relatively unknown minoans who of course despite menzies seeking out evidence in places called minoa did not actually call themselves minoans ( more likely kekassai but that theory is all my own )ranging from the long outdatedidea of phoenicians in america to neolithic star gazers and the gates of stonehenge ( the great minoan longitude dial) nothing really added to this chestnut

conn iggulden empire of silver book 4 of his genghis khan series i have read a lot of iggulden his emperor series etc hoping like the four books of emperor series that book 4 would be the last of this series

set post genghis in the time of the sickly khan ogadei this has the mongol conquest of europe as its backdrop readable action packed and skilful enough to stand alone

tao of travel a great collection of digest pieces from travel books and memoirs all the best bits from john de mandeville to ran fiennes in addition to two fisted climbing of everest via the north ploe chapters on staying home and imaginary journeys and a breakdown of the sometimes days and weeks that the travelling writer and critical observer of foreigners spent in the country before writing their book well chosen well written a prize

graham greene the lawless roads as i found out from the above tao of travel greene spent six weeks in a mexico he didn't like researching the basis for the novel power and the glory

used to read a lot of graham greene and somerset maugham in my youth

2012 not ending not beginning

well it is new year and the usual nothing

read a lot over christmas but see new things in new year not the same old continution

still totally empty re inspiration and have written nothing new since october looking back on my 2011 basic universe poems wonder how i could write such good things as now totally empty

work wise not so good and feel this year will be parting of ways after ten years

no muse no romance no writing apart from nature heaven and emptiness