Tuesday 23 January 2018

What Logan is reading away from the world of colourful ponies

Time for a little non-Pony post. After years and years of being told I should read it, I've finally started on The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius. In translation, I'm afraid! I've got through the first four so far (Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula) and it's not a bad read. It's not quite the non-stop gossipfest some people make it out to be, as there's a lot of stuff about military campaigns and family backgrounds in there. Still, it does have plenty of entertaining/horrifying parts, so I'll keep going.

I'm also having another go at Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss. This is an oldish-school (1960) science fiction novel which appeals to me, partly because it's shorter than the bloated novels that blight the shelves these days. Also, though, because I like the setup: in the far future on a huge spacecraft, tribes roam the corridors looking for the mythical Forwards. (This isn't a very accurate summary, but it's good enough.) So far it's very readable, which isn't always the case for old-fashioned SF.

Finally, there's another SF novel. The Ennead. Yes, spelt like that. This is a young-adult book by Jan Mark; I'm not sure how well known she is outside the UK, but there was a time when she was everywhere in school libraries. She won the Carnegie Medal, the premier British prize for children's fiction, twice and was runner-up once, though not for The Ennead. This is set on a dying planet where refugees from Earth have settled. Only just started, so can't say much about it yet.

4 comments:

  1. The Ennead are one of my favorite Sentinels villains. >.>

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    1. Not being a comics fan, this means nothing to me. I'll take your word for it. :P

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  2. I read Non-Stop years ago, and quite liked it!

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    1. I'm still not far enough in to be sure, the world-building is certainly appealing to me.

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