flemmings | (no subject)

(grimly) pitas.com is down. I suspect that means pitas.com has vanished, and with it a chunk of my past. And of course I can't find the .doc backup I made of

paleaswater's blog so long ago.

The Blue'n'white bookstore has a bunch of Heian detective novels by I.J.Parker.

kickinpants gave me the first one way back in '04, but like everything else I read during that convalescence, I remember nothing of it at all. So I'm rereading Rashomon Gate to see if the rest are worth getting. Jury is out still, but what's obvious to me now is that this is the best Judge Dee pastiche I've ever read. Missing only is a Judge Dee figure; Sugawara Akitada is much less mmh magisterial, and no surprise, given that he's not a magistrate.

Finished also the third Yashim mystery, The Bellini Card. Goodwin's titles confuse: there's no Bellini *card* in this, just as there was no snake *stone* in The Snake Stone. There is of course, again, a beautiful woman and much cooking; the cooking part intrigues me, the beautiful woman bit--- oh well. The plot was as twisty as The Snake Stone's; but whereas that one I could follow, pretty much this one left a few unanswered questions in my mind. Or at least-- 'is that at all likely?'s. I also agree with the goodreads readers who felt the absence of Yashim through much of the first half did the book no good.

Have also picked up two volumes of the Nightside series, possibly an addition to my Weird London reading, possibly a waste of time. I wait to see.

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There really isn't any London in the nightside's London, per se.

How lucky it was used and 20% off then, she says cheerfully.

Thank you so much for the lovely card and especially the sweet little note in it. Such a lovely thing to greet me in my post box.

Oh good- so glad it arrived. Have a good new year if I don't talk to you before then.

If this is the Nightside series I'm thinking of, by Simon Green, then it has some nice images and a good ear for names, but is rather repetitive, and everyone speaks in the same way. It's not at all the "urban sorcery" or even quite "city mythology" of Kate Griffin or Paul Cornell. It can be an entertaining read (and I will confess to having the paperbacks on my shelf) but it is - well, not really more than that.

Though he does have a good ear for names and titles.

It is indeed. I was suspicious just because there seemed so much of it. As you say, it's entertaining, but otherwise nothing to my purposes.

How was the newest Cornell, by the way? Annoyingly, all of his non-tie-in oeuvre is non-circulating in our library system, so I have no idea how he writes.

I enjoyed it a lot, but it's not quite urban-mancy as in the Griffith books. It's more... hm, power through knowledge and sacrifice and memory, and resonances/links through history. I think that you will like it, but it's a different flavour. Though one that could easily be translated into other cities/locations.

Do you want me to send a copy your way?

Mhhh-- that does sound intriguing, but let me sleep on it. (ie let's wait till it comes up on amazon and I can see what the style is like.) I might find it wonderful-- or I might find it Sixty-one Nails.