Second paragraph of third story ("When This Peace Thing Blows Over", by John Skylar):
For a black hole, there's a spot, the event horizon, where you can't escape even if you're a beam of light. Past that, the hole is totally black. Hence the name. But around that border, gravity focuses light from the other side of the hole. It creates a bright, bent corona around the emptiness. As if its beauty alone could suck you in through that brilliant iris into a pupil of oblivion. In Maryam's eyes, I slipped over this event horizon and was lost forever.
OK, a big peeve here: the title of the book as published is partly in mock-Cyrillic, STЯAПGE BEDFЗLLФШS. This kind of thing really annoys me. Я is a vowel, З and Ф are consonants, and П and Ш may be consonants but they sound nothing like N or W. Russian is a real language, as are Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Kazakh, etc, and these letters have real meanings. It seems odd for a book published almost a quarter of a century after the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe to equate Cyrillic script with subversive politics.
This is a 2014 anthology of original stories with political themes. I may just have been tired when reading it, but the only one that really lingered with me was the opener, Eugie Foster's "Tried as an Adult", which takes the U.S. justice system and extrapolates it to a grim conclusion. Funny how the concerns of 2014 just look a bit different now. It's been a long seven years (especially the last one). You can get it here.
This was both the shortest unread book I had acquired in 2014, and the sf book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. Next on those piles respectively are Hurricane Fever, by Tobias Buckell and Zodiac Station, by Tom Harper.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
My Georgia work culminated with our client winning the election. I have not agreed with everything he has done since, but I'm really glad to have contributed to this moment of Georgian history.
I brought back a souvenir for little U.
This moment of elation was tempered by the awfully sad news of the sudden death of my youngest aunt, Denise Keenan, aged only 54 – the same age that I am now. Just a few weeks ago I posted the last picture I took of her in May 2012, grinning widely (as usual) at the front of a family group.
Less dramatically, we had local elections here in Belgium, and as usual I asked the candidates difficultquestions. Our mayor was running for a seventh six-year term, having been in office since 1976; he lost.
Apart from two visits to Tbilisi and a sad journey to Ireland, I also went to Barcelona, and to London for a Worldcon meeting.
In my office, my Doctor Who-loving Colombian intern L was hired by one of the other Brussels consultancies who had worked on the Georgian dossier, and is still with them, though no longer in Brussels. She was replaced by MG, French but more or less naturalised to Geneva, taking a brief Brussels phase in her career.
Rather a low page-count and book tally for the month, but I was about to finish three longer books.
~2,300 pages (YTD 64,800)
1/11 (YTD 60/224) by women (Pinborough)
1/11 (YTD 10/224) by PoC (Johnson)
The two best of these were the Torchwood short story collection Consequences, which you can get here, and Stuart Maconie's Adventures on the High Teas, which you can get here. You can skip J. Russell Fearn's Conquest of the Amazon, which I admit I only bought because of the cover; but if you want you can probably get it here.
Second paragraph of third story ("The Black Eggs of Khufu", by Tom Dexter):
It was the third time he’d asked. Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart’s journey had taken close to a week to reach Cairo, and Ahmed was certain that this fact was about to be brought up again, but the site of the black granite slab proved to be enough of a distraction.
Really enjoying the expanding universe of the hidden history of Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart. This is a collection of short stories and out-takes from the novels, all decent enough, some really memorable – "Ashes of the Inferno" by Andy Frankham-Allen, the overall show-runner (if a book series can have such a person) is a follow-up to the TV story Inferno, and "House of Giants" by Rick Cross is a nice postscript to the First Doctor story Planet of Giants. Best of all is "The Lock-In", by Sarah Groenewegen, set at the end of Lethbridge-Stewart's life and looking back to a forgotten adventure. These wee books are very good value. You can get this one here.
Mr. Polly’s depression manifested itself in a general slackness. A certain impatience in the manner of Mr. Garvace presently got upon his nerves. Relations were becoming strained. He asked for a rise of salary to test his position, and gave notice to leave when it was refused.
I have been curious about this book since I was ten. In the summer of 1977, Roy Castle did a series of children's programmes for the BBC on musicals, two of which particularly stuck with me: Salad Days, which had had a revival the previous year, and the last in the series, The History of Mr Polly. At the end of each episode, which was a synopsis of the plot with a few of the songs being performed, Roy Castle would tell us the production history of each musical's performances, except that in the case of Mr Polly, "There's only been one". Rather than in the West End, this was at the newly opened Churchill Theatre in Bromley, H.G. Wells' home town, starring Roy Castle himself in the title role and with some impressive firepower – script by (Lord) Ted Willis, music co-written by Ivor Slaney who did most of the Double Deckers music, directed by veteran TV director Wallace Douglas. But I don't think any of it survives beyond the printed programme leaflet, and apart from its being Wells' birthplace, Bromley is an odd location for a stage show starring Roy Castle, then at the height of his powers.
Anyway, forty-four years on, I got the original novel. And I must say I was captivated. Very briefly, Mr Polly is a middle-class chap who makes bad choices in terms of career and marriage. At the start of the book he is consumed by frustration at his situation, and we spend the next few chapters exploring how precisely he got to where he is. He determines to burn down his own shop and commit suicide as it falls around him. But that does not go entirely according to plan, and he undergoes an improbable but really delightful redemption. I don't completely recommend it – I think Wells is laughing at his protagonist's pretensions a bit too much for my comfort – but I like this a lot more than Tono-Bungay, which is my only other non-sf Wells so far. You can get it here.
Next up in my Wells reading is Kipps, which also has musical connotations for me.
Sat, 19:58: RT @BrusselsTimes: All restrictions – apart from wearing face masks when moving about – will be lifted in bars and restaurants in Belgium f…
As I always say, I don't know much about art, but I know what I like. And I like the work of all of these artists. Without further commentary, my votes this year are as follows:
Sat, 10:45: Liberal Democracy Is Worth a Fight https://t.co/GlLgTVPqcM “In the real world, the battle to defend liberal democracy is sometimes a real battle, a military battle” – @AnneApplebaum
A bomb had flattened a factory in the heart of the territory the Drofen had been spotted in most often. We made our way there just before the sun went down. Not that you could actually see the sun through the cloud. As we left, just outside her house, Isabella gave Erimem a huge hug. Not me or Tom, you understand, just her. Yuri held out a pistol to Erimem and she slipped it into a pocket inside her coat. She had her sword as well. I was relieved she wasn’t going into this unarmed but I had my doubts that whatever she carried would be enough. I couldn’t shake the image of that thing tearing at flesh and bone with those teeth.
Second in the series of Erimem novels that started rather promisingly. I'm afraid I was less convinced by this one, which takes our time-travelling heroes to a crucial point of history where there turns out to be alien interference. New Who has done this several times (arguably Old Who did it as early as The Time Meddler), recently most notably in Rosa and Demons of the Punjab. But there are risks to this plot, most notably of getting the tone wrong, and I didn't feel that the story did justice to the serious historical situation that was chosen as the setting. Still, I'll persevere with the series. You can get this one here.
Thu, 12:56: RT @Mij_Europe: Events in Afghanistan have prompted growing angst in EU capitals & Bxl about another refugee crisis in Europe – akin to 201…
Thu, 17:11: Blog post from a year ago: Which books of the Bible pass the Bechdel test? With extra Art. The Bible and the Bechdel Test https://t.co/bzQV8YilCl
Thu, 20:48: RT @nwbrux: Cally: My people have a saying, “A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.” Avon: The life expectancy must be fai…
So, here I am in Norn Iron, recovering from a weekend of family party. I must say that it has been amazing to be back. Normally we would spend three weeks here in the summer; obviously last year that did not happen at all, and this year Anne was here just for the weekend, F and myself staying an extra week. We wear masks in enclosed public spaces, of course, and everyone has a battle story to tell; and it’s not over yet. But to have a family reunion was fantastic.
My brother and sister and I clubbed together and got Eleanor Wheeler to create a semiotically charged bird bath as an 80th birthday present for our mother, here being ceremonially unveiled.
And inspected by three out of five grandchildren (our girls not being available).
Apart from being struck down by lactose intolerance, I have been making the most of being here and seeing a few more people, including my godson, his mother and grandmother.
F got to meet Bród, one of the most famous dogs in Ireland.
Thu, 10:45: RT @KnutCrosswords: deafening sound of pennies dropping in The Commons as intellectually incurious ex-army Tory MPs realise that making a s…
Thu, 11:00: RT @davidallengreen: Breaking news about the Suez Canal misadventure More 1956 news as it happens
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
September started for me with the seating of Loncon 3 as the winning bid for the 2014 Worldcon, without opposition, and most of my spare time during the month was spent on Worldcon stuff. I got the news that we had won in Tbilisi, where I spent nine days with my Georgian client at the start of the month, culminating in an election rally in Telavi. I went back at the end of the month for the election itself. During my first visit, John McCain came by to say hello to my client:
I also took a moment to admire the art collection:
~7,600 pages (YTD 62,500)
4/25 (YTD 59/213) by women (Le Guin, Hobb, Orman, Yoshinaga)
1/25 (YTD 9/213) by PoC (Yoshinaga)
A lot of good books this month, of which the best was an old favourite, A Tale of Two Citiesyou can get it here. Best new read was Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprenticeyou can get it here. I gave up on Dagger Magic on page 72; you can get it here. Also not impressed by Lovejoy's adventures in Rome; you can get The Vatican Rip here.
Wed, 10:45: Reader, he blocked me. He was expressing himself so inarticulately that I have no idea why. (Though please don’t feel you need to ask him, I am not very interested really.) https://t.co/5L4JFCFjBf
Yajna: "We still have not been accepted as
a permanent member of the UN Security
Council, despite our diplomatic efforts."
I read the first volume in this series a couple of months ago, and enjoyed it; the second keeps up the pace, with a well-realised set of characters stealing a giant nuclear-powered battle robot from its resting place in Bombay and bringing it towards its destiny in the Algerian desert; meanwhile the baby born at the end of the previous volume has a very mysterious mark on its forehead which seems linked with the mysterious intrusion into our reality from another world. This volume is a little middle book-y as we travel from start to conclusion of the trilogy (in a giant killer robot floating westward over the Indian Ocean), but the pace is kept up very well. The third and final volume comes out next month, and I'm looking forward to it.
This was my top unread comic in a language other than English. Next on that list is vol 2 of Retour sur Aldebaran, by Leo. (Though I'll bump that down a step if I get hold of Le Dernier Atlas 3 first.)
I was at a big family party (big, subject to COVID regulations) last weekend, and discovered the hard way that I have become lactose intolerant. The dessert on Saturday lunchtime was a lovely creamy affair, meringue piled high with cream and more cream, and I allowed my taste buds to over-rule any concerns expressed by my digestive system and lapped it up.
Perhaps an hour later I was seized by intense stomach cramps, followed by bloating and other symptoms which need not be further described, and retired to bed and could not get out of it (apart from repeated urgent trips across the landing) until the morning. I was already aware that too much cheese disagrees with me (but then again, that's what "too much" means) and now I must add cream and probably all dairy products to the caution list.
It was pretty unexpected, though. At a gathering of relatives, I seem to have been the only one affected. I think that a couple of years ago I would probably have been all right. But it won't do me any harm at all to drastically cut down on the (already low) amount of dairy in my diet.
And of course this puts me in line with the majority of humanity, whose tolerance for lactose ends with childhood. We who are (or, as in my case, were) able to digest dairy products as adults are mutants.
Sun, 19:54: My uncle and his kite – note very small uncle in blue at bottom left, reminiscent of those diagrams of the earth and the moon, drawn to scale! https://t.co/IYp5iCvNwQ
Mon, 10:45: The EU’s Rise as a Defense Technological Power: From Strategic Autonomy to Technological Sovereignty – Carnegie Europe – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace https://t.co/6qoD9YrCIh from @rcsernatoni.
Third paragraph of The life and adventures of Mrs. Christian Davies, commonly call’d Mother Ross; who, in several campaigns under King William and the late Duke of Marlborough, in the quality of a foot-soldier and dragoon, gave many signal proofs of an unparallell’d courage and personal bravery, taken from her own mouth when a pensioner of Chelsea-Hospital, and known to be true by many who were engaged in those great scenes of action:
Nothing remarkable occurs to my Memory from the Time of this Monarch’s being proclaimed, to that in which he was forced to throw himself into the Arms of his Iriſh Subjects, having been driven from the Throne of England by King William. The Iriſh very readily eſpoused his Cauſe, and among others (from a Conſciouſneſs of its being a Duty incumbent on him to ſupport his lawful Sovereign, notwithſtanding his being of a different Religion, which he thought not Reaſon ſufficient to affect his Loyalty) my Father ſold all his ſtanding Corn, and other Things of Value, to Mr. Aſcham, a neighbouring Farmer, and was thus enabled, with what ready Money he had by him before, to raiſe a Troop of Horſe, and provide them with Accoutrements, and everything neceſsary to take the Field; and having furniſhed himſelf with a fine Horſe, and whatever elſe was requiſite, he ſet out at the Head of this Troop, which was called by his Name, Cavenaugh’s, to join the Reſt of the Army. I remember I was very fond of riding this Horſe, for a Reaſon which would have prevented any other of my Sex venturing upon him; I mean his Mettle; for he was ſo fiery, that not one of the Troop durſt mount him. You will, perhaps, wonder how I could; but I had ſo often fed him with Bread and Oats, that he would ſtand for me to take him up, when at Graſs, though he would have given twenty Men Work enough to catch him. When I had once hold of him, I would put on his Bridle and lead him into a Ditch and beſtride him bare-back’d. I have often mounted him when ſaddled, and took great Pleaſure to draw and ſnap the Pistols, and have not ſeldom made my Friends apprehend for my Life. I mention this, not as worth Notice, but only to ſhow my Inclinations, while a Girl, were always maſculine.
Second paragraph of third chapter of The Secret of Kit Cavenaugh, by Anne Holland:
The river was tidal at this point, and teemed with fish. James’s army of 23,000 guarded a fording point near Oldbridge. A little further south the river reached Rosnaree before turning north again to Slane, where, as part of the battle preparations the Jacobites had destroyed the bridge to prevent their enemy crossing it. But the possibility remained that James’s army could be outflanked if their opponents marched upstream and managed to ford the river somewhere else. If that happened, their only escape route would be by bridge over the Nanny, a tributary of the Boyne at Duleek.
I am hugely grateful to Wim Uyttebroeck, expert on the 1693 Battle of Landen aka Neerwinden, for flagging this up to me. Christian Cavenaugh, born in Dublin in 1667, ran an inn there and married her barman; but then he was unexpectedly conscripted into the Duke of Marlborough’s army and disappeared from Ireland completely. Christian Welsh, as she now was, decided to go looking for him by dressing as a man and enlisting at the Golden Last (which incidentally has just been refurbished); it took her several years to track him down, and then several more years before an army doctor treating her after the Battle of Ramillies discovered that she had breasts (her secret had survived earlier treatment for a hip injury). In the meantime she had courted many women in male guise, while forbidding her husband to go near anyone else once she had found him.
Once the secret was out, she became a camp follower, ensuring logistics and provisions for her husband in particular and his comrades, and also unapologetically and frequently engaging in the looting of civilian property. Her long-lost first husband was eventually killed in action. She married twice more, ending her life as Christian Davies. When peace finally came she got a pension from Queen Anne and on 19 November 1717 was admitted to Chelsea Hospital as a Pensioner; she is recorded there as a “fatt, jolly-breasted woman [who] received several wounds in the Service in ye habitt of a man”.
Her account really is an extraordinary document. Since the late nineteenth century, it has been attributed to Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe; but this seems very unlikely as he died eight years before it was published. (And also I think he would have written it more smoothly.) It’s a combination of detailed military history of the wars, which has been fairly thoroughly checked out for accuracy and consistency of dates, and Christian’s own personal history, which seems a lot more vulnerable to inaccuracy – to give the most blatant example, we are told that between the Battle of Aughrim, where her father was supposedly killed, and the Battle of Landen/Neerwinden, where she herself received her hip injury, she ran the Dublin tavern, got married, had three children, wondered where her husband was for a year, and finally enlisted. But the two battles were only two years apart, so it seems improbable. However, it’s clear from the rubric of the book that she was delivering it as oral history, without documentation, to an unnamed scribe, who then quite possibly finessed the military history research.
I really want this to be largely true. It fully caught my attention in the second sentence, where she states that her father’s landlord soon after her birth in 1667 was an Arthur White of Leixlip. As it happens, an Arthur White of Leixlip, born in 1611, was the son of my 7x great-grandfather Sir Nicholas White and brother of my 6x great-grandfather Charles White/Whyte (therefore my 7x great-uncle, if you’re counting). There is evidence to suggest that my Arthur White died before 1648; but he may well have had a son or a nephew of the same name, or Christian may be wrong about the dates. The coincidence seems a bit too good to ignore. (Especially since, as Cailtin White (no relation as far as I know) points out, a lot of her other Irish details are shaky.)
I was also struck by the local details regarding our part of Belgium. When she finally finds her husband in Breda, she is drinking a pint of “hougarde”, ie the Hoegaarden blond beer which we still know and love today. After Ramillies, her secret is discovered while she is being treated for a skull wound at Meldert, which is the next village to Hoegaarden, very close to where B and U live. The bits about Flanders are very definitely written by someone who knew this part of the world. (The bits in Germany seem a bit vaguer – in particular the description of the Battle of Blenheim doesn’t actually use the name “Blenheim” for it, which seems odd for the climactic battle of the earlier war.)
Particularly interesting for me is an account of an unsuccessful French raid on Leuven in 1710:
The Partiſan du Moulin attempted to ſurprize Lovain, but was diſappointed by the Bravery of the Burghers. On the 5th of Auguſt he detach’d a Party, who ſcaled the Wall between the old and new Gate of Bruſſels, where the Ditch is dry, and having the good Fortune to enter the Town without being perceived, diſarm’d the Burghers Guard, open’d a Gate, and let in their Comerades to the Number of four or five hundred; who poſting themſelves in Saint James‘s Church-Yard, ſent a Party thence to the Heart of the Town, who ſeiz’d upon the Guild, and ſecured the Burghers Grand Guard. After this Expedition, they intended to poſſeſs themfelves of the other Gates, the Gariſon which was but a hundred and fifty Men, having withdrawn on the firſt Notice into the Cattle. In the Interim, the whole Town was alarm’d, and the Burgher-Maſter awaking with the Noiſe made in the Streets, ran diſguis’d to St. Peter‘s Church, where he ſhut himſelf in and rang the Alarum Bell. Immediately the Burghers took to their Arms, and headed by Van de Ven, march’d to the Square and drew up in order before the Guard. Du Moulin hearing that all was in motion, ſent in all ſpeed an Officer on Horſeback, to ſee how Matters went. He came to the Square with his drawn Sword in his Hand and threaten’d the Burghers to fire the Town, if they did not lay down their Arms: but this Menace was ſo far from having the deſired Effect, that one of them fired at him and the Ball taking him in the Throat, tumbled him dead from his Horſe. The Burger-Maſter, immediately order’d the Inhabitants to repair from their different Quarters to the Gate the Enemy had open’d and retake it; while he at the Head of his Company march’d with beat of Drum to St. James‘s Church-Yard to diſlodge the French: But they fearing they ſhould be cut off from the Gate, thought of nothing but their Retreat, and it was time for them to do it, for the Burghers arrived juſt as they left the Church-Yard, and hooted them as they went off.
This is a reasonably well documented event (the Emperor presented the city with a golden key as a reward), but I’m struck by the detail provided. The Sint-Jakobskerk is indeed just off the Brusselsestraat, and just inside the old city wall; the churchyard, immediately to the south, is now the rather soulless Sint-Jakobsplein open air car park. It’s bizarre to think of this as the site of a pitched battle 311 years ago last week. (Though that’s equally true of many other parts of Belgium.)
I’ve used she / her pronouns here, because that’s clearly what Christian used, but she’s equally clearly an early well-documented case of genderqueerness. I bet that she gave a lot of physical joy to the Dutch and Belgian women she courted, though they may have been puzzled that she did not go as far as most male soldiers would have done. (Of course, some of them may have known perfectly well, and been happy enough!) By her own account, supported by the existence of the Chelsea record, she was as effective (and brutal) as any other soldier in the army, and thrived living as a man.
And she was not alone – one of her early anecdotes is that a French officer who died in her parents’ house in Ireland turned out to be a woman when she was laid out for burial. An appendix to the original 1740 book alleges that the dead French soldier had a device for easy urination standing up, which Christian then appropriated and used during her own military career. This seems perhaps a little too good to be true; but then so does the entire story.
You can access the original copy of the Life and Adventures here or here, or also get it from Amazon here. Terry Pratchett must surely have known about this when he wrote Monstrous Regiment; in fact I would not be surprised if there is some direct borrowing (which was his usual MO), but I have not checked.
A few years ago, Anne Holland produced a version of the Life and Adventures which somewhat uneasily straddles the genres of novelisation, historical research and simply reprinting chunks of the original. It doesn’t add a lot, to be honest, but it may be more readable for people less used to eighteenth-century style. You can get The Secret of Kit Cavenaugh: A Remarkable Irishwoman and Soldier here.
The Truman Show won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1999, beating three other films and a Babylon 5 episode. I have not seen any of the losing films, which were Dark City, Pleasantville and Star Trek: Insurrection, in that order. IMDB users rate the Truman Show 3rd of the year's films on one system and 4th on the other, with only Saving Private Ryan ahead of it on both systems; it is well ahead of that year's Oscar winner, Shakespeare in Love (which is why I'm doing it first).
None of the cast appears to have been in Doctor Who, or in previous Hugo-winning films, but there is one who was in an Oscar-winning film. Muriel Moore plays the (briefly seen) teacher here, and was Miriam, one of Daisy's friends, in Driving Miss Daisy. The Truman Show is her last credited work on IMDB; I have no further information about her.
The film is about a chap whose entire life has been a reality TV show, without him realising it. His parents, wife, friends, neighbours and colleagues are all actors, and he lives in a huge film set created purely for him. And of course he finds out.
Back in the innocent days of 1998, this sort of society seemed like a potential future nightmare that we would none the less surely be wise enough to avoid. But the film has turned out to be eerily prophetic, both with the rise of reality TV as entertainment and with the ubiquity of the surveillance society. The TV show Big Brother premiered in the Netherlands the following year, though MTV's The Real World dates back to 1992, and the Dutch Nummer 28 to 1991.
It's not just the satire, of course, it's the story of Truman Burbank's own conceptual breakthrough, one of the most fundamental of all SF plots; and I could not help but be struck by the similarity between the famous Camille Flammarion engraving, and the moment when Truman's yacht hits the wall that was serving as the sky.
Not going to write too much more about it, except to salute the performances of Jim Carrey in the title role, and Ed Harris as the sinister Cristof who is actually in charge of it all.
We've all felt a bit like Truman Burbank at times, I suspect, and the film beautfilly plays on niggling doubts that we may in fact be someone else's Property. Non-white characters don't get a lot to do, and the women are very much supporting the male leads, but it's not the only film of which that is the case.
So, generally very entertaining, and I'm putting it a third of the way down my list, ahead of The Empire Strikes Back but behind Aliens.
Current The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley A Hero Born, by Jin Yong
Last books finished In de tuin, by Noëlle Smit Hr. Alting, by Bente Olesen Nyström Trocoscópio, by Bernardo P. Carvalho Meidän piti lähteä, by Sanna Pelliccioni Mijn straat: een wereld van verschil, by Ann De Bode Fridolin Franse frisiert, by Michael Roher Otthon, by Kinga Rofusz La Ciudad, by Roser Capdevila Sortie de nuit, by Laurie Agusti The HAVOC Files 2, ed. Shaun Russell Strange Bedfellows: An Anthology of Political Science Fiction, ed. Hayden Trenholm Two Truths and a Lie, by Sarah Pinsker Thirteen, by Steve Cavanagh Dalek, by Robert Shearman Fish Tails, by Sheri S. Tepper The Place of the Lion, by Charles Williams A Tale of Two Time Lords, by Jodie Houser et al A Woman in Berlin
Next books Cryptozoic, by Brian Aldiss The Primal Urge, by Brian Aldiss
Over the last few months, I’ve been working away at a little project: to win Civilization 6 on every one of the maps, on all four victory settings. For each game I played, In decided in advance which victory I was going for and chose a map, but let the game assign me a leader, and in general it worked. A waste of time? Well, I don’t get as much from it as I do from reading or watching a film. But it is tremendously satisfying to Take Over The World, in various different ways, in various different worlds.
I have not gone overboard: I didn’t get any of the expansions, and once or twice I accidentally won the wrong way. But it is a fun game, and although I have finished this project I may go back to it from time to time.
Religious victory:
This is actually the easiest and quickest of the four to achieve. Provided you invest in religious buildings, and, if possible, Stonehenge, from the beginning, you can build up a massive advantage in religious output very early, and successfully stamp out heresy with quite a small number of cities, sometimes even before the dawn of the Industrial Age. All the other three victories need you to have at least an average sized empire to achieve critical mass; but if you are a religious superpower, you may need only half a dozen cities by the end, four on a small map.
Shares with the domination victory a need to explore the world to find other civilisations to convert/conquer. I tried it on one of the big maps and won while pulling in over 500 Faith points a turn by the end.
You can get some lovely paradoxes by winning with incongruous combinations: Queen Victoria converting the world to Zoroastrianism was one of my favourites.
Domination victory:
To win a domination victory, you obviously invest in military training and industrial production, but you also have to start conquering your neighbours early. The most difficult bit of this for me psychologically is that you spend most of the game with all the other empires angry with you, because they think you are a warmonger, because you are a warmonger. For a people pleaser like me, that goes against the grain. But basically once you have nobbled a neighbouring capital or two, you are already probably the biggest civilisation in the world, and then it is just a matter of industrializing, developing tanks and aircraft, and out-thinking the AI’s rather poor military strategy, until the last capital falls. Again, you have to explore the world to win.
Science victory:
This and the cultural victory require you to have at least an average sized civilization, but don’t require the same dominance as the military route. The space race can get quite competitive between civilizations at the end, and you need spies to sabotage your neighbours’ spaceports and stop them getting to Mars first. You need to finish with three working spaceports, which means a fair bit of strategic forward planning, more than for any of the other victory conditions. Once or twice I had to resort to a quickly assembled military strike force to take out the more advanced capitals, but it is also possible to win without fighting a single war.
Cultural victory:
This was the most difficult to get the hang of, and I am still not sure that I have completely got it. It requires a lot of investment in the early game: every theatrical district you build is a holy site or campus or encampment that you didn’t. It also needs a strong enough religion in your own territory at least to be able to send apostles into other civilizations to get martyred and generate relics. And again you need spies to steal works of art from any other civilization with cultural pretensions. The crucial Wonder for me in a couple of these games was the Eiffel Tower, which enabled me to build loads of seaside resorts and generate a winning advantage. At the end, once you have built up the momentum, the tourism points suddenly start shifting your way with dizzying rapidity, but it can feel like a long wait.
Anyway, it’s been fun, though I have spent too many nights sitting up late playing it for just a few more turns before turning in. I may even try some of the expansion kits, but before I do that I want to try this year’s Hugo finalists now that we are trying the games category.
Thu, 16:05: Afghanistan war: Taliban back brutal rule as they strike for power https://t.co/Bsi1IONUuM Inside the (rapidly expanding) zone of Taliban control.
Fri, 11:53: RT @SethRudy: Local: are you going to close the beaches? Jaws Mayor: no. And we’re banning shark repellent L: JM: oh and the shark is fast…
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
The main business of the month was our family holiday in Northern Ireland. We went to Newgrange, which is always amazing.
And discovered the then fairly new museum at Bagenal's Catle in Newry, where you can dress up as an Elizabethan.
We also went to the brand new Titanic exhibition, but I took only one photo, of the last despairing radio exchange from the doomed ship.
I profited from the holiday to read 30 books. A lot of my spare time was spent setting up systems for the 2014 Worldcon.
