not writing much poetry with bells on

well it is near end of 2011 a year that in the future will be a year a date from like 1914 or 1901
started off well writing a lot of poems under the title basic universe but since i published my ebook online at amazon kindle christopher lantern his midnight name ( to date sales zero) and on lulu http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/christopher-lantern--his-midnight-name/18690777 - likewse sales zero
i have become commercial and thus seen a drop in inspiration where once i could write a fantasy trilogy in an afternoon on a a A4 sheet (admit it it is easy to do) or create whole mythologies and pantheons

now i have little time due to work committments for which i have won yet another award as adult education teacher
find myself down to earth and not a heavenly wanderer anymore
the picture above i used to find very inspiring it is the view of the sun from alpha centauri the sun is the bright star at the end of the big W of cassiopeia -almost the heart of the sky
no longer look at the stars to speak nor make thir patterns
do not know what will happen in 2012 only know it will not be the end of the world -that will be in 2159

lets have another enemy bigger than the borg!!!!!

read a star trek voyager novel children of the storm, just like the series scripts in which the voyager crew on their second mission to the delta quadrant meet another enemy one which has obliterated the borg once and for all and is suprise suprise -non corpereal and extremophile instead of the usual stick on ears and earth morals however despite early promise the tale goes no where except as a usual star trek script

what can you expect from a novel with the TV characters playing their usual roles and room for two appendices at the end one showing starship classes and crew complements. the other the names of the main bridge crew of each ship

the mammoth book of dracula ranging from original bram stoker to spoofs and rips off of i am legend from deathless dracula fighting the nazis (twice) to post nuclear war vampires shows that fundamentally vampire tales are a one trick pony

second chance at eden stange to read a story by peter F hamilton only thirty pages long a lot of backstory from the great trilogies such as the first voyages of the lady macbeth and the invention of bitek some approaching asimov others off target

slaughter on a snowy morn by colin evans the story of the stielow murder case and the crooked testimony and phoney forensics that nearly sent a man to the chair in 1915-1918

this is the second book this year that has governor charles whitman as a crooked politician who having killed charles becker ( satans circus by Mike Dash ) now hopes to ride to the white house via another high profile murder case with the same doubtful evidence

northland novel gone south

read the lat gospel by david gibbons having read his earlier and better works this is a talk thriller a diving adventure full of gas
also read bronze summer by stephen baxter the second in the northland trilogy the first being the stone spring a good book about the tidal wave that engulfed doggerland this second book about northland definitely gone south a mix of absolute fantasy and historical fiction as hitites and trojans fight over the potato crops of northrn europe after the eruption of hekla 3 circa 1159bc as usual trite with the sadistic scenes of ancient world cruelty added over the 21st century charactors and language expect iron winter is about the kaali meterorie strike well i had the idea three years ago with my sun daughter tale

a jury of her peers american women writersby eline showwalter over 20 years ago i wrote the poetry fragment " a woman writer something itself sterile the face blurred and loud " accurate and long overview of woman writers no time for gender in literature you either have no talent i in the first plave or outlive your talent

a renegades history of the united states promised much in radicalism but turned out to be chapters about minority groups from freed slaves to gay rights a lot about music from minstrels to jazz less about freedom and morals

penguin book of egyptian myths and legends ny joyce tyldesley readable colection of nyths legends and fairy stories that make up what we know and love about egypt

victorian detectives

the dead witness a connoiseurs collection of victorian deective fiction by michael sims very good in that it is actually crime fiction written in the victorian and edwardian period and not the foggy cliche of the historical whodunit although soem are the usual anthology fodder such as dupin, holmes and father brown to lesser known tales of violet strange, max carrados uncle abner and november joe
the disappearing spoon yet another chemistry thrilling history telling the story of the periodic table but this one is readable and clearly written all the way from lead leprosy to childrens games with mercury and on to the only natural nuclear fission reactor in the world
stars wars clone wars siege a run of the mill star wars novel this time set in the last days of the republic the clone wars obi wan and anakin as jedi heroes parachuting behind enemy lines to destroy a secret weapon, very ordinary and trying to give depth to a cartoon only anakin's occasional sulks and tantrums indicate what is to come barely two years later
dino gangs the theoryby dr philip curie that dinsaurs were team players and pack hunters

royal storyboard

murder of the romanovs by andrew cook the ofter repeated tale of the simple autocrat his imperious wife, the four doll princesses and the sad little prince who led an existence of one long holiday and come the revolution hoping to be rescued by their royal relatives thy all got shot
lots of newly released photos and appendix records even has time for claimants and the other executed romanovs
planet word companion to a bbc TV series i never watched stephen fry is listed as author but only wrote the foreword well researched by content ranging from ape to advertising ,backslang to bahasa but hasn't the tale been told before
the telescope by richard dunn attractive pictorial pocket history the history of the telecope from spyglass to hubble good on the early period but mainly greenwich based
the sisters brothers by patrick de witt read this as a great western an odyssey fully told with a ghost town of western types full of cinematic images and story telling

medieval clocks and moon dials

it is in this time of year you can see the night sky looking at thr big full moon and remembered when everyone else used it in poetry i used it to tell the time using a moon dial phase clock i made from cardboard for anyone interested in such things this is a great site of resources

http://www.middleschoolscience.com/earth.htm check out make a plantisphere, big dipper star clock moon clock and astrolabe templates

I find using the big dipper star clock and noctunal above less useful as they only tell the time on the hour based on the month note you line up cassiopeia and the big and little dippers so they match what you see in the night sky and according to the position you can read the month and hour

the noctunal is something i alwys wanted but real ones are expensive and made of wood and ivory and do not make an easy template i eventually found a diagram of parts of a noctunal which i printed out on cardboard

the old boat the old story

read the mammoth book of historial crime fiction edited by mike ashley ranging from the bronze age to the 1920s it promised much and delivered part more novellas ten short stories some overplayed for example the roman investigators or medieval sherlock the most orignal was a tale of butch and sundance on a new york crime spree waiting for their boat to south america but this just left the dock story wise others even a sister fidelm story just potboiled to flagged conclusion

street fight in naples by peter robb a panorama of naples claimed to be a thousand year history bit mainly stuck in the 17th century bit fragmented and dull even in the story of the fisherman demologue Masaniello, who is just one of the charactors

the ascent of media from gilgamesh to google roger parry well structured and good history of media from writing on clay tablets to ebook but on the whole read like a website

city of fortune bt roger crowley (note books i read this week mostly by a roger just concidence) crowley is a venice specialist and this did not disappoint telling of early venice exploiting its connectins to the byzantine trade links , exploiting the decline and fall of the byzantines at the expense of its commerical rivals genoa and pisa in trade and war then venice coming up against an all powerful ottoman empire and the new world trade routes

pirates and friends

pirates of the seven seas angus konstam a lavishly illustrated AA guide to pirates from the ancient world to moden somalia vivid accurate and a brilliant illustrated guide with all the top ames inside from blackbeard henry morgan black bart roberts to ann bonny and female pirates of china and even finds place for privateers

wired for god charles foster the origins of human spirtuality and experience from wearig a god helmet to second hand shamanism tantric sex , magic mushrooms NDE and OBEs

corsets and clockwork steampunk romances some barely ticked along over absurdly overwound some good stories liked the ones about a cannibal fiend mermaid clockwork war crabs versus nazis , wild west airships
the sword of damascus another aeleric novel this one reads like a 25th anniversary rennion story with the 97 year old monk ex byzantine chancellor kidnapped by the caliphate to recreate the greek fire of his youth ,same plots same story lines

Area 51 was built to hide the alien base called Area 52

area 51 by annie jacobsen intensively researched book that at last revesls thr truth about Area 51 it was just an ordinary airbase where they tested and flew spy aircraft and the only reservr enginnering of technollody was working on soviet MIGs and with new 1960s records now declassified you at last find out about cold war survelliance techniques. millions of dolars spent on a nuclear engine that went nowhere and finishes with the idea that roswell was the crash of a stalin era flying saucer crewed by nazi modified dwarves

the feast of the goat by mario vargas llosa concerns itself again with multi layered stories and the last days of the 1930-1961 dominican republic dictator trujillo, a weak and self important thieving bully surrounded by like minded synophants who like all dictators and their parasites played too long on the world stage

the invention of murder by judith flanders the origins of murder and the popular media and how murders and murderers played on for years after the event in plays novels and popular legends - there may be nothing as interesting about 19th century england as reading about a damned good murder followed by a damned good execution and this well researched book proves it

secret britain one of the many comendiums of englaig ghosts, eccentrics and historical events that make the country what it is

two of my new youtube poems

i have added two new you tube poems to my channel pleid and bone teller created 2011
http://youtu.be/q6X88PnlhTg

http://youtu.be/zSIBkit96VE

fallen empires of one hundred years

the german geniusby peter watson describing the great geramn scientsits, philosphers writers and musicians of the 19th to 20th centuries and their expresion of german ideas form the wilhelmine to the post nazi despite rthe bildung nothing really special here all countries have their great scientists, musicians and writers
the 1000 pages plus of the book only go to show how germany has fallen off the world stage even if they did start it!!
skull and bones by john drake mercifully the final book in his long john silver his early days saga going downward from book one here both captain silver and captain flint spend little time at sea and less time in piracy having tom and jerry mis adventures in georgian london from bordello to tyburn meeting real life historical personages along the way like dr johnson and george washington
berlin-baghdad express sean mcmeekin relating the attempts of imperial germany to create a second front in arabia, persia and afghanistan to little effect
the war at the end of the world by mario vargas llosa a novel with huge numbers of charactors concerns itself with the millenarianist war of canudos and the army using more and more force to crush a small village of believers and their charismatic leader anthony

beasts and romans

read steven saylors new novel Empire. i had previously read saylors first volume in this saga Roma the story of one roman family from the foundation to the end of the republic
Empire tells the story from the last days of augustus to the start of the antonine period with altogether less skill perhaps due to the over familiarity of the period in fiction what else can you say new about caligula or nero?
likewise the family never leaves the inner circle of the imperial court regardless of who the emperor is, little to distinguish the plot or story- domitian is another nero, nero is another nero. vitellius is another nero. hadrian is another nero. An occasional eunuch or unfaithful vestal virgin is brought in for decadence
the uniciorn road by martin davies began well with this tale of a medieval expedition sent to search for fabulous and mythical beasts but they soon arrived at their destination and then got bogged down at the mongol border and you soon realised they would never find the beasts however it was a good tale told well with crafted plot moment and multi faceted story appeals to anyone interested in mythical beasts, cathar treasure hunts and rough tough knights fighting new enemies in far asia

secret religions a brief guide to hermetic, pagan and new age religions a study of wicca, new age and occult groups it demontrated that most are founded by splitters , followers become new messiahs, membership of all the cults is low and what they believe is what they believe

brevertons phasmogoria a pleasure to read a compendium of monsters myths and legends, drawing heavily on pliny the elder and medieval texts it is excellent in scope and detail to be dipped into and enjoyed as i expect it will be

boldly going behind the iron curtain in outer space

read another typhon pact star trek novel zero sum game a starfleet spy thriller that read like the looking glass war or firefox
set in the empire of the number nine star trek villains the masked and mysterious cyrogenic lifeform "the breen" the spy story explained the breen away as totally un-alien isolationists a paranoid union of republics where everyone is masked and equal and so 1950's eastern european
the two fisted story of starfleet agents hacking into the breen security network composed as it was of CCTV, nodes. servers and routers completely out of content with the 24th century nothing is bold in this and imagination fails to reach the final frontier

magic and mystery in tibet, i had wanted to read alexandra david neel since undergraduate days and there is a new english translation out rather dated neel tells of third hand evidence of magic lamas and imagines more than she sees

the armour of alchiiles glynn illiffe the third in the odysseus cycle as with many trojan war novels just a retelling of the basic homer in modern english , the charactors are as flat as bronze warriors and the story is just related direct from the sources hope the odysseus cycle gets better when illiffe reaches the voyage home stage as this was just ten years camped outside a city wall

we the drowned by carsten jensen a rarity among modern novels you read all 800 pages eith pelasure and when you get the the end you want to read it all again from the beginning this is true storytelling a real epic of nautical curiousities that carries you along the story of a danish seafaring community and its peole from 1848-1945 this will appeal to the lovers of windjammer prose and adventure magic five stars for jensen

so to get published i have to buy my own books

received an email re my poetry ebook from lulu publishing quality assurance saying they cannoy offer my poetry ebook for sale as it does not fulfil the publising requirements and demonstrates improper use of capitalisation and punctuation
so there is a full stop missing on page 14 and my poems titles are not in the correct format for correct use of capitalized titles and sub titles
never really used capital letters at the beginning of poems or followed the rules for commas
it is a wonder anything gets published now
how did ee cummings get published then?

i aslo put the same 12 page book on create space indie publishing but was informed it needed to be 24 pages or more and i will need to order a proof copy minimum is 100 copy print run
why i know what is in the book?
i will also need to put in an overseas IRS return on the W7 correct form as the Uk is a tax with holding nation

steam punk loses its fire

written in stone brian switek another dinosaur book that avoids the usual mezozoic talent and discusses the archaeocestors of birds, whales, horses, elephant and hominids well researched and readable
fifty plants that changed the world a gardeners theme book illustated and coffee table of the stories behind chilli beans to coconuts rose to rubber cotton to coriander
breakheart pass fast moving disposal of villains on a wild west train action the way read this and understand why alistair maclean still in print

dark sun a pax britania victorian future history book by jonathan green the usual steampunk adventure this tine set on the moon reminded me in many ways of the 1969 movie Moon zero two without the steampunk clunkering read like an average amazing stories magazine story of the 1930s characters simply action figures the usual steampunk pudding of victorian fantasy gothic and true life victorian fiction heroes doing their usual thing ie cavorite powered apollo XIII , clarke bradbury and asimov as pioneers of space flight
with nazis, time travel and and giant robots thrown in passes the time but one of many

my publishing sensation

The sensation is of course that i actually bothered to gather together all my poems from 1985 to 2011 and make an ebook for kindle i had decided to create an ebook because it was something to learn how to do and less effort than a published bound and bagged book
if you ever get on amazon check out christopher lantern his midnight name i wanted to price it at 50p but discovered this was below the drop down price list
quite enjoyed the experience of getting my poems in a book without the usual failed to make a anthology, competiti
ion shortlist or magazine
i also published via lulu http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/christopher-lantern--his-midnight-name/17435539 priced at £1.00
i had created a new poem written in about two minutes and put it in tragedy and sadness rather than my usual category of faith enlightenment and universe

Perhaps the dead. Even the dead
Of death, of dream
Seeking escape in the mercury drowned white
Heavy unseeing
Biting your lover deep

had a few comment more than usual one being below
"man this has suicide written all over it
nice wording scary but good"
and another taking me up on the real colour of mercury -"mercury drowned white...but mercury is silver. So what is this? Very vague poem and alot of things you can read into it. hoping for more. "

should be my publishing selling line what is better than vague!

dreamt i was writing

supergods Our World in the Age of the Superhero y grant morrison i had read some graphic novesl in the 1990s such as marvels, miracleman, kingdom come , darkseid and knew about at least 10% of the entries in DC/marvel encylopedia but that about it this book by an established if rather pretend counter culture comic book writer told the story of the golden age, silver age, counter age and everyday alternative earth of the comic book Morrison tends to take himself too seriously who has the godlike powers here author or charactor? and from page 262 and the following chapter has a rather underwhelming alpha centauri vision of alien life
as typical with these autobiographies of my life in cultdom (ie dr who, military modelling, medieval battle reinactment) morrison mentions the funny fans and the odd obsessives he meets at all expenses paid conventions - hope they don't read this book

the moon on the hills by bill page one of the many roman britian novels apart chase thriller , part steeped in pagan orphean quest imagery dream trip despite the many dream sequences it is predicable and linear

the japanese devil fish girl by robert rankin his 32nd novel a comic fantasy set in an alternative victorian england after the martian invasion despite a promising start - a young churchill send the chronically sick to infect the planet Mars, and then moves on to the by now typical opening in a travelling freak show despite a voyage on a great passenger airship and meeting with martians, venusians and jupiterians the story increasing goes nowhere in a not that funny cartoon manner with the main charactors being so cardboard they fell over and off the page
the female love interest is byrons daughter ada lovelace born 1815--lets say she does not or in common with the rest of the books charactors act her age
ideas are picked up- the elephant man as a jack the ripper suspect. adolf hitler as a surly wine waiter but then not used

siberia Russias frozen frontier 1581-1991 an academic history full of tables maps and statistics strongest in content after 1917

get your kicks from order 66

501st imperial commando a star wars timeline novel set in the early weeks of the change over from the decadent galactic republic with its jedi corrupted petty tyrants to the glorious new age of our saviour galactic emperor it tells the story if story is the word of clone troopers who become " believe everything you hear on the news" palpatine loyalists engaged in a COPS style hunting down of jedi, usual nods to familiar franchise scenarios and familiar franchise charactors however no one gets a chance to smoke yodas arse much as they would like to ie the often repeated stormtrooper tales of where were you when you first heard order 66 the best bit is when the stormtroopers explosively dispose of a holed up jedi who turns out to be a opportunisitic thief of jedi equipment -" geez what kind of moron waves a light sabre around in times like these "
given the canon timeline and that most novels exist around the events of episodes 1-6 what happened to non canon novels ie 1977-1980 when anakin skywalker and vader were two different people, emperor palpatine merely a corrupt caesarian polititian and the clone wars just a name without a plot- true of the star wars franchise novels really

Ancestor scott sigler set in guess where a icebound research station with an experiment on the loose herethe creation of bovine carnosaur hybrid lots of crunch and gore as the charactors are bitten off one one by the rather too much like 1980s movie gremlins monsters the date and time chapter headings only showing how slow the novel really is sigler has publicity video of the novel like film trailer on website worth a look as it totally encapsulates the novel

kingdom of ohio matthew flaming a grand idea for a first novel the story of a lost princess from an alternative america lost in 1901 new york lots of footnotes mainly pseudosource asides on time travel experiments by tesla and edison and the opening of croatan portals to other worlds a first novel but don't do it again !!
albert jack true meaning of nursery rhymes how many more books on the theme of the main historical events of the 15th to 18th centuries being remembered in nursery rhymes

just call me hack poetaster

looking back on my writing from 1985 to 2011 noted i have only written 37 poems in that time and between 2002 -2007 only wrote 2 poems

the early work was prolonged social comment or love epics over 200 words in length

note today my poems are brief the theme at point of abyss and i managed to create 16 poems from feb 2011-Aug 2011 on the theme of basic universe that are becoming increasing minimalist and marginal in their universality

since it is library day expect the usual dire historical novel trilogy , the laking in amazing story sci fi novel and some general history of science book with the often bibliographic boring history of an obscure household object or even more obscure footsteps of a forgotten explorer taken by their distant relative

even the contents of the library of Alexandria are not so thrown away

have I read this before- no its just the same old story!!

richard blake blood of alexandra i have seen blakes byzantine thriilers before i like this period but kept on picking themup. opening at random finding turgid converstion and limp plotting and putting them back
this promised much the old familiar archaelogical thriller alexanders tomb mixed up with yet again a secret brotherhood guarding the old faith of the pharoahs clues that led to a lost pre altlantean city in the desert whose lost knowledge had helped create the glories of hellenistic science butvery much a talk novel with signposted charactors that by being in the previous two books you were now expected to know well
incidently looked at blakes blog he adds book reviews of his works by others
love to add one myself but have feeling i will read all the other novels in this series despite not really liking the predictable dull 7th century modern talk action and adventure is it junk food or what ?

complete gods and goddess of the ancient egyptians the old faith itself only showed the egyptians had a god for everything and that their religion was mainly cultic
jerusalem the biography by simon sebag montefiore from the book of kings to the six day war jersualem as the backdrop to all the main events from jesus to the crusades and onto the apocalyspe
eugene rogans the arabs a history narrative touched on similar ground and events but saw the last five hundred years as a fight against ottoman and european colonialism
only goes to show the history remains how we write it changes

booker prize novels come with own bookmark

read that jarmachs menagerie is shortlisted for the booker prize fair if not marvellous book
can only say never read many booker prize books either experimental or memory
noticed that i am not getting inspired stuck in a hopeless loop of goddess books, multivolume sci fi books set in cliche federations with hidden menaces

never read chick lit or closet drama of the age no time for modern versions of marie corelli george meredith or somerset maugham

had ideas for six novels myself stuck in synopsis or chaper one land mainly historical surreal stories set in time of incas, boudicea as a snobbish pseudo Roman matron gone bad , john dee as dicator of a magical elizabethan england, the true story of the 6th dalai lama and not forgetting my two trojan war novels

too much boredom with the goddess

library read julian copes megalithic european   well researched well travelled  and phoots of each megalolith illustrated however each phoot was runed by  the presence of a sinster loking  middle aged hippy who wandered into virtually every shot    but then i realised it was the author of the book
periodic table shoes i know little of chemistry  a usual popular science travel book  telling the usual stories about gold , plutonium , calcium  cadmuim cobalt mercury et al
 the life  and death of palnet earth    first thr plants die, then the oceans boil the sun becames a red gain consuming the inner palnets then ends up a cold cinder just as the andromeda galaxy collides with ther milky way six billion years hence   six billion years i thought it said six million years hence  at first -getting  worried
the voyages of the zen brothers  who discovered the faroe islands, the shetlands and the orkneys  in the late 14th century    and  were rewritten post columbus as discovers of america  i thought it was thomas of oxford a franciscan monk who discovered america via greenland in 1360 perhaps he was a literacy hoax too

i have not written any poetry for months   you can just have so much imagining of thr goddess  or pondering the night sky 

america the new rome and declining

read john julius norwichs history of the popes demonstrates that the career church professional outnumbered the nepotist and the magnifico
the last of rome by adrian goldsworthy follows the gibbon line with asides on the true extent of atiiolas empire and why the sassanid empire never became a superpower or encouraged in a standoff cold war with the roman empire shows the strengths and weaknesses of theRoman empire as USA

impact by douglas preston had read his tyrannosaur canyon before quite a fast moving thriller reached the denoucement expected tale of NASa scientist discovering an alien artifact while engaging in depscan of deimos moon of mars and the number of interested parties and hit emn after the evidence the artifact turns out to be an alien planetary bombardment weapon millions of years old and starts taking potshots at the moon and earth good ending unexpected

under heaven by guy gavriel kay famed for his historical fantasies set in countries not unlike byzantium( sarantium) or moorish spain( al rassan)
this was set in tang china and related the often novelised story of the an lushan rebellion and the foundation of the failed yan dynasty
lot of words lot of similiar plots

viking berseker chick lit

read giles kristians raven odins wolves kristian lives in cottage overlooking his ancestral norwegian fjord and yet still churns stuff like this out
part three of a trilogy it reads like watershop down and is told in rugged first person viking the tale of an oathsworn band(robert lows whale road )the vikings travel via moorish spain getting into fights all the way to contantinople and the middle east(robert low, tim severin, anyone)save emperor nikephoros from a revolt is this the 803AD or 808AD revolt (both are mixed up)
a much better plot would have been the oathsworn band of berserker muppets involvement in nikephoros bulgarian campaign where his head ends up as a drinking cup and court conspiracies surrounding the brief reign of the paralysed war wounded emperor staurakios but sadly it is the same old just viking cliche

the evolutionary void yes County libraries actually now stock more than one volume of a trilogy better than the last series as multiple story strands come together but straying towards the expected
stephen hawking the grand design hawkings usual rehash of scientific ideas passed off as cosmology
alex's adventures in numberland read this before from numbers starting at zero to infinite counting

putting poems on youtube

i was looking at new media to publish my poems and combined work created on my bryce world building software course with movie maker to upload a poem as a visual experience to you tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxeEQOEFfzU

I had created a series of postcards
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gx_fccwckU&feature=related

island based human animal hybrids fighting against robots

read future science books this week an optimists tour of the future by mark stevenson bit of a kurzweil tour looking at genomes, synthetic biology carbon neutrality bionics and other things not happening in the future

electrifed sheep by alex boese i had previuously read his elephants on acid and more of the same eccentrics in science good chapter on humanizing apes and the experiments since victorian times to train monkey butlers but now we try to learn their language rather than in the past try to teach chimps to speak english with the rise of robot machines the idea of monkey servants declined
i say carry on perfecting both and let them fight it out!!

peter j hamilton dreaming void part two of the trilogy librairies often only stock the middle book of a trilogy as usual with hamiltons work it only gets started after page 400 full of world building, multiple story threads voyages to the far edge of the galaxy isolated communities and alien enemy getting there eventually not as good as judas unchained epic rather than interesting

pathfinders the history of arabic science a tale of translation from greek to arabic, arabic to latin and what peace and patronage can do to aid intellectual pursuits the west had the dark age science it needed at the time

history written as it should be

library read belisarius II an omnibus of two alternate history novels destinys shield fortunes stroke by eric flint and david drake the belisarius series these are the middle two out of the six novels are set in an east roman empire where wars are fought with armoured lancers, guns and rockets against an alien controlled indian empire the malwa c530AD setting aside the out of time technology and that belisarius is aided by an alien it is your typical romo war novel with set piece battles
likewise master of rome the third novel of the masters of sea series by john stack set during the first punic war i have previously read his ship of rome and captain of rome in the last year and this continued the story of the greek sailor atticus fighting for rome as usual with stack people and events are combined for narrative purposes ie the multiple hannos and hamilicars on the carthaginian side combined as one
the novel seemed to pick up in the middle from the usual leisurely campaigns of the first two book masters of rome starting in 255BC with the sicilian campaigns i suppose one rammimg and rowing naval battle is the same as another by now as if to prove this the events rushed on to the end of the war in 241BC where it all ended happily read that stack is now working on spanish armada series
story of archeology starting with first discoveries of the past and moving on chronologically
complete world of greek mythology i first read this in 2004 but only ever wrote one classically inspired poem Bewailing Actaeon in 1999 ........Circe she waits upon him and serves him fattened for the swine....Zeus, truth in marble.descent of the perfect circle the buttocks bared, face of an angel.