Compromise and Conceit
Infernal adventuring…
Category: book reviews
-
Blood of Elves is the “sequel” to The Last Wish, which is the first book in the series which spawned that most excellent computer game, The Witcher. It’s by a Polish writer called Andrzej Sapkowksi. Unfortunately – and I knew this before I bought it because a Polish girl warned me but I forgot the…
-
In response to the recent stoush over Tolkien, race and conservatism, I did a little more research on Tolkien’s racial theories and their similarities to other eugenic and racial theories floating about in the interwar period. I don’t have my primary or secondary sources with me, because my Tolkien Bestiary is in a box in…
-
In the interview linked to below, China Mieville claims that high fantasy is conservative, and that due to its prominence the fantasy genre in general is judged as conservative by critics. This seems pretty uncontroversial to me, but over at Monsters and Manuals this claim was disputed as a shallow interpretation of Tolkien and of…
-
…by Rudolf Klein. Sometimes I feel my contribution at work is entirely too technical, so I have decided to broaden my knowledge of the political context of my work by reading this excellent introduction. This seems particularly apt since although I lived in England as a child, and have a British Citizenship, I am essentially…
-
I am reading The Watchmen, which was given to me by one of my players/DMs (we alternate) who, even though he works in IT, is so old-skool he doesn’t even have a blog. At least, not one he’s shown me. This isn’t the reason I can’t quite get into The Watchmen though. The reason is…
-
So between October and April England disappears into a murky world of fog and chilly, dark afternoons. What does one do during that time? I have been reading, my role-playing group switched to an old favourite, and I watched a few things. Here are the things I have been reading and doing recently: Rolemaster in…
-
I am currently reading <i>I am a cat</i> by Soseki Natsume, who is apparently a much-loved author from Meiji era Japan. The book is set in Japan in 1905 during the Russo-Japanese war, and is told entirely from the point of view of an apparently omniscient cat, who is nameless. The cat lives with a…
-
Having lived in Japan, I have on occasion been called a “Japanophile” or an “Orientalist” because there are some things about Japanese life I think are good and should be adopted in the West. I am interested in the possibility that these accusations actually represent a racist rejection of critiques of the West based on…
-
I am in a holding pattern this week, because tomorrow the Delightful Miss E joins me from Japan, on Friday is my 35th birthday, yesterday I moved house, and on Saturday a friend of Miss E’s is coming here on a holiday (from Japan). So in between all these things there is not much to…
-
This weekend just been, I had to travel by boat to Amsterdam to spend the weekend with my World of Warcraft friends, the good Dr. A and Miss B. This meant much time to myself in trains, boats and the like, so I bought myself a hefty book : The Faded Sun Trilogy by CJ…
Compromise and Conceit 