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Having left Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
corone and lareinemisere's last week (well, I was bound to forget *something*), I took the opportunity to read corone's copy of Philip Pullman's "Ruby in the Smoke" instead.
I'd not been sufficiently inspired by the idea of a Victorian detective story to bother with this when I first read, and loved, Northern Lights way back in 1997, which is odd, considering how much of a Sherlock Holmes fan I was when I was a child.
It turns out that my instincts were completely wrong, because I very much enjoyed. There's more than a trace of Northern Lights' Lyra in Sally Lockhart - lacking in the niceties of a liberal education, but intelligent and practically minded, she's a charming, willful savage (in the best meaning of the word ;)). There's a thoroughly engaging surrogate family, a couple of suitably evil villains and a plot that positively zips along - convoluted without being ridiculousy so. Good clean fun all round and thoroughly recommended :).
And I think, conveniently enough, Tarek has the others...
After last weekend's fun and excitement (already detailed by my illustrious hosts ;) ) this weekend has been pleasant, if quiet. Lisa's birthday meal on Friday was nice, although Sandy spent most of it proving to the world that he shouldn't be allowed within a hundred yards of an alcoholic beverage. The evening ended with poker, which was my cue to leave.
On Saturday, I broke the back of my Christmas shopping. Go me. (Ok, that's probably being a little optimistic, but at least I did *some*, and I have some good ideas for the rest). And today there was chores (including, finally, the getting rid of the piles of junk from the move, which had been waiting on the recovery of my car (which required an almost complete rebuild of the engine and cost the better part of £1300 *gulpgibberwhimper* )), and picking up of unwanted furniture from Ade and Anna. Ade had to return his firstborn to its mother in Preston just after I arrived, which left me and Anna to sort furniture. Again she was briefly and subtly inappropriate - as always, so brief and subtle that I couldn't be sure if I was imagining things, and, also as always, I just ignored it until it went away. So nothing new there.
Voices of Masada in, of all places, Macclesfied on Friday. Weehee, roadtrip ;)
Have fun, y'all.
corone and lareinemisere's last week (well, I was bound to forget *something*), I took the opportunity to read corone's copy of Philip Pullman's "Ruby in the Smoke" instead. I'd not been sufficiently inspired by the idea of a Victorian detective story to bother with this when I first read, and loved, Northern Lights way back in 1997, which is odd, considering how much of a Sherlock Holmes fan I was when I was a child.
It turns out that my instincts were completely wrong, because I very much enjoyed. There's more than a trace of Northern Lights' Lyra in Sally Lockhart - lacking in the niceties of a liberal education, but intelligent and practically minded, she's a charming, willful savage (in the best meaning of the word ;)). There's a thoroughly engaging surrogate family, a couple of suitably evil villains and a plot that positively zips along - convoluted without being ridiculousy so. Good clean fun all round and thoroughly recommended :).
And I think, conveniently enough, Tarek has the others...
After last weekend's fun and excitement (already detailed by my illustrious hosts ;) ) this weekend has been pleasant, if quiet. Lisa's birthday meal on Friday was nice, although Sandy spent most of it proving to the world that he shouldn't be allowed within a hundred yards of an alcoholic beverage. The evening ended with poker, which was my cue to leave.
On Saturday, I broke the back of my Christmas shopping. Go me. (Ok, that's probably being a little optimistic, but at least I did *some*, and I have some good ideas for the rest). And today there was chores (including, finally, the getting rid of the piles of junk from the move, which had been waiting on the recovery of my car (which required an almost complete rebuild of the engine and cost the better part of £1300 *gulpgibberwhimper* )), and picking up of unwanted furniture from Ade and Anna. Ade had to return his firstborn to its mother in Preston just after I arrived, which left me and Anna to sort furniture. Again she was briefly and subtly inappropriate - as always, so brief and subtle that I couldn't be sure if I was imagining things, and, also as always, I just ignored it until it went away. So nothing new there.
Voices of Masada in, of all places, Macclesfied on Friday. Weehee, roadtrip ;)
Have fun, y'all.
