Sunday Morning Book Thread - 1-5-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, abandon those New Year's Resolutions, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

PIC NOTE

2025 is already starting off to be a very surreal year, so why not start the Sunday Morning Book Threads with a surreal image? This is taken from the Codex Seraphinianus, an illustrated encyclopedia of an imaginary world written in an indecipherable language created by Italian artist Luigi Seraphini. It bears some resemblance to the Voynich Manuscript with art that is somewhere between Dr. Seuss and Hieronymus Bosch.

READING GOALS FOR 2025

I don't put much stock in New Year's Resolutions. I don't recall ever making them, nor do I recall attempting to keep them. However, in 2024, I did come up with some reading goals because I reached a significant milestone birthday and wanted to celebrate by crossing a few books off my "bucket list." I was able to accomplish that goal for the most part. For 2025, I think my main goal will be to finish reading a number of series in my TBR pile. In some cases, I've read the first book, purchased the remaining books in the series, but for various reasons, I never finished the series.

What are YOUR reading goals for 2025?

RABBITS KILLING PEOPLE IN MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS

The Codex Seraphinianus depicts bizarre and unusual objects within its pages, but it's far from the only weird artistic book out there. It turns out surrealistic art in the margins has a long and glorious history among illuminated medieval manuscripts. For some reason, much of this art features rabbits killing people in a wide variety of strange and unusual ways. Monty Python and the Holy Grail incorporates this into its plot with a killer rabbit preventing the knights from passing through a cave that may lead to the Holy Grail. Terry Jones was quite the medieval scholar.

SINISTER FAERIES

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meanings. No-one has ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.

--Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett

Over the past century or so, fairy creatures have acquired a reputation for being cute, playful tricksters, who may lead people astray, but don't mean us much harm. Some can even be beneficial to humans, like brownies that help out a cobbler with his work. Disney seems largely to blame for this, though if you look closer at Disney's depiction of fairies in their movies, they aren't quite as nice as you might think at first. For instance, how do we know the fairy godmother in Cinderella didn't demand the titular character's firstborn daughter as payment for services rendered?

Anyone who's read fairy stories for any length of time will quickly realize that fairies are treacherous, murderous critters that obey their own laws and pay no attention to the social standards of humankind. Faerie lore seems to be somewhat universal as well, as creatures sharing commons powers and abilities tend to show up in numerous mythologies from around the world. The Trickster archetype is very common, for instance, regardless of the civilization in which he appears.

Curiously, although faeries are seen as supernatural, even spiritual beings, they often prey upon humans by appealing to humans' physical desires. Faerie food and drink, for example, are said to be far superior to mortal food and drink, and anyone who partakes of faerie food will be trapped in their world forever. Elves possess an otherworldly beauty that can snare the hearts of mortals, again leading us to our doom should we indulge ourselves by mating with them. To them we are simply amusing diversions, to be discarded (or destroyed) once they tire of us.

Are faeries a form of demon? Is that why they tempt us?

CRITICS' PICKS FOR 2024

This is what literary critics believe are the "best" books of 2024. These opinions, for what they are worth, are highly subjective, as everyone's tastes are different. I think you will be able to identify some commonalities among their selections, however, that also serve to identify their preferred ideology. Not really surprising considering the source of this video and the critics that were selected to provide their opinions.

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

May, 1940. Four hundred thousand British and French soldiers at Dunkirk have just learned that Belgium surrendered to the German army, and the panzer divisions are just miles away. With that surrender, the allied troops are trapped on the coast. Winston Churchill has been prime minister for just two weeks, and is faced with catastrophe.

Walter Lord, in his book The Miracle of Dunkirk, provides the definitive account of the greatest evacuation in military history. The Royal Navy, assisted by hundreds of private boat owners managed to land hundreds of craft at the beach, and extract three quarters of the troops to safety in a matter of days.

Private citizens like Charles Lightoller, former Titanic officer, took their own craft to the rescue. As Churchill said, a retreat is not a victory, but these rescued troops formed the base on which Britain built their fighting force from. This retreat was a moral victory that presaged actual victory to come, and Lord gives a detailed view of the heroism displayed.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 29, 2024 09:17 AM (R7yRq)

Comment: A strategic retreat in warfare is often necessary to avoid catastrophe or to prevent a total defeat. The Allied troops needed to escape across the English Channel to regroup and revise their strategy. We know how it all turned out, but it could have all gone very, very wrong. It's also an example of how private citizens can step up and provide invaluable assistance when called upon to do so. We see that all the time here in the United States of America. Unfortunately, governments have a tendency to get in the way...

I read Cause For Alarm by Eric Ambler. Some believe Ambler is the inventor of the modern suspense novel. In this work Nicky Marlow is in London in 1937. He is engaged to be married and needs a job. Although he is an engineer, he takes a position as the manager for Spartacus Machine Tools' office in Milan. His predecessor met a sinister death, and he is soon courted by agents with dangerously different agendas. The Italian secret police finds him to be a spy which leads to a long, harrowing escape from Italy to the Yugo-Slav border. A realistic thriller.

Posted by: Zoltan at December 29, 2024 09:47 AM (OAKaM)

Comment: I had never heard of this author, but apparently he inspired other authors in the suspense thriller genre. He also wrote screenplays, even scoring an Academy Award nomination for The Cruel Sea.

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (1000+ Moron-recommended books!)

WHAT I'VE ACQUIRED THIS PAST WEEK:

Since I began 2024 by reading Steven Erikson's most excellent series, Malazan Books of the Fallen, I decided to start 2025 by reading Ian C. Esslemont's companion books that take place within the same world. Erikson and Esslemont are long time friends that designed this world together, mostly as a roleplaying game experience that they then turned into novels. (Raymond E. Feist did the same thing with his Riftwar Saga.)

• Path to Ascendancy Book 1 - Dancer's Lament by Ian C. Esslemont
• Path to Ascendancy Book 2 - Deadhouse Landing by Ian C. Esslemont
• Path to Ascendancy Book 3 - Kellanved's Reach by Ian C. Esslemont
• Path to Ascendancy Book 4 - Forge of the High Mage by Ian C. Esslemont

In addition to the prequel series above, Ian Esslemont wrote several stand-alone novels that take place during the main epic storyline of the Malazan Books of the Fallen. These flesh out other areas of the world of the Malazan Empire, extending the worldbuilding in new and exciting ways.

• Night of Knives by Ian C. Esslemont
• Stonewielder by Ian C. Esslemont
• Orb Sceptre Throne by Ian C. Esslemont
• Blood and Bone by Ian C. Esslemont
• Assail by Ian C. Esslemont

WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

After reviewing some of OregonMuse's old Book Threads, I thought I'd try something a bit different. Instead of just listing WHAT I'm reading, I'll include commentary as well. Unless otherwise specified, you can interpret this as an implied recommendation, though as always your mileage may vary.

Fairie Tale by Raymond E. Feist

I first read this as a teenager and I recall not liking it at the time. I decided to give it another go. I enjoyed it much more the second time, thanks to the combination of age and experience that have shaped my reading since then.

Phil Hastings moves his family from California to rural upstate New York to start a new life as a novel writer. Unbeknownst to him, his new property has an active "fairy mound" and his family soon notices odd occurrences and strange happenings as the local faeries take an active interest in the Hastings family. A war between the Seelie and Unseelie courts threatens the entire world as an ancient bargain is disrupted, which could lead to disaster for the human race. Hastings must also find his son, who was taken by the faeries as payment for his innocent transgressions.

Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill

This is another faerie-inspired story where the faeries are rather nasty buggers. Cargill draws upon not only faerie lore, but also middle-eastern myths and legends. Colby Stevens is granted a couple of wishes by a djinn, who has been cursed to only grant wishes that turn out bad. Ewan is a changeling who grew up among faerie kind. When Colby and Ewan find each other, they become fast friends. Colby grows up to become a powerful wizard who must take on the faeries of Austin, Texas who will kill Ewan to fulfill an ancient bargain they made with Satan. It gets quite twisted quite fast.

Queen of the Dark Things by C. Robert Cargill

In the sequel to Dreams and Shadows, Cargill draws up on Australian Aboriginal lore to tell the story, as Colby must face consequences of a choice he made in the past. The titular Queen of Dark Things has never forgiven Colby for abandoning her to her fate in the Dreamworld. Now she's back for revenge.

Both Dreams and Shadows and Queen of the Dark Things use an interesting narrative framing device to tell their stories. The main chapters are interspersed with excerpts from a fictional text that explains much of the lore required for understanding the events of the story. I'm not sure if there is an actual name for this narrative framing, but I found it interesting, especially when we find out that these excerpts were actually written by Colby Stevens under a pseudonym.

Path to Ascendancy Book 1 - Dancer's Lament by Ian C. Esslemont

Before he was Cotillion (a.k.a. "The Rope"), the patron god of assassins, he was known as Dancer, a superb killer. Before that he was simply Dorin, a young man dreaming of becoming the best assassin in the world, but lacking the business skills needed to develop that reputation. Along the way, he meets up with Wu, a strange mage who may or may not be a confidence trickster. Dorin is caught up in a conflict between the Protectress of the city-state of Li Heng and the King of Itko Kan, seeking to claim the city for his own.

This is a prequel to Steven Erikson's Malazan Books of the Fallen. We get to see a number of characters that eventually show up in that series, before they achieve fame in that world. Wu is insane, but also fun as he keeps Dorin on his toes throughout their exploits. Dorin is just trying to make a name for himself as a killer-for-hire, setting his sights on the King assaulting the city.

Path to Ascendancy Book 2 - Deadhouse Landing by Ian C. Esslemont

Dorin and Wu have fled the city-state of Li Heng for greener pastures on Malaz Island. Wu is still insane and adopts a new name--Kellanved--because it sounds more badass (seriously, that's his reasoning). Dorin is now known as Dancer, due to the fighting style he uses. They take control of the criminal underworld of Malaz City, as Kellanved launches his scheme to steal the leadership of the island out from under its current pirate lord, Mock. It's a plan worthy of Pinky and the Brain. Unlike one of the Brain's plans, Kellanved's scheme works, laying the foundation for an empire that will one day conquer a third of the entire planet.

Path to Ascendancy Book 3 - Kellanved's Reach by Ian C. Esslemont

As I've been reading through Esslemont's take on the Malazan universe, I've frequently found myself looking up characters on the Malazan Wiki site, because I don't remember their significance in the larger narrative. Thank goodness for the internets!

In this book, Kellanved's venture to steal the throne of Malaz Island was successful. Now he sets his sights on the nearby rival island ruled by Nap. Once he controls both realms, he'll be in a position to dominate the coastal cities of the continent of Quon Tali. And once Kellanved controls those, he'll move on to rulership of the newly born Malazan Empire! Then things get weird as Kellanved demonstrates once and for all he's walking around with a pair of stones made from pure neutronium...

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Tips, suggestions, recommendations, etc., can all be directed to perfessor -dot- squirrel -at- gmail -dot- com.

Disclaimer: No Morons were physically harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Made with all natural organic ingredients. And lots of love.

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