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Pigeon Agents of Review
Apr. 24th, 2016 05:07 pmHey,
So I heard/read a couple more books:
First up Pigeon Post by Arthur Ransome. Another in the Amazons and Swallows series. And since most of the back half of the series is only available on audio, that's the format I had to take.
If you've been following me, you know the drill -- British schoolchildren have delightful outdoor adventures. This time around, there's pretty much no sailing. The kids are off to go prospecting out among the fells for gold. But there's a serious drought and their ability to camp beyond the watchful eyes of the grownups is in doubt until a source of water can be found. Also, there's a mysterious man in a squashy hat who seems to be spying on them -- perhaps to jump their gold claim!
As always, it's a wonderful read. There were a couple of points on this one that struck me as a bit dodgy to modern readers:
1.) The kids explore old mine workings! The older children do make a point of telling the younger ones not to go into any caves on their own but of course... Still, it's hard to believe that even the older kids could evaluate how safe/dangerous an old mine shaft might be. In general, the children are presented as extremely competent beyond their years, but this business with the mines is a bit of a stretch.
2.) There's a small dollop of...magic? weird phenomena? The book is usually quite precise in its dividing line between the practical real and the imagination of the kids, and the kids themselves know when to let reality intrude, but here things bleed over a bit and it seems like a departure from the usual format of the books.
Overall, it's still a lot of fun reading, but I'll be happier when the books shift back to the water.
Next up, Agents of Empire: Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits and Spies in the Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean World by Noel Malcolm. To elaborate a bit on the title, it's a history covering the interactions between the Ottoman Empire, the Western European powers and the Balkan states they fought over/through.
Mr. Malcolm tells the story by following two families from Albania, the Bruni and Bruti families. Some of them fought for Christendom at the Battle of Lepanto and became Knights of Malta, a number of them worked as interpreters between the Ottomans and Venice, Rome or other powers and a most of them traded goods and information back and forth across the lines. I have a bit of a fondness for this place and time and in watching how various members of the family dealt with the shifting fortunes of their many employers, you can get a better sense of what was going on.
It's broken up into short, punchy chapters that follow one member of the family and there's obviously a bit of overlap, but they mostly stand on their own. It's not the easiest of reading, but it's mostly dense with people and places named in languages not congruent to English so it was sometimes a bit of a hassle to straighten things out. Still, the work is pretty good and worth checking out. I think there's a lot of material for an RPG campaign.
later
Tom
So I heard/read a couple more books:
First up Pigeon Post by Arthur Ransome. Another in the Amazons and Swallows series. And since most of the back half of the series is only available on audio, that's the format I had to take.
If you've been following me, you know the drill -- British schoolchildren have delightful outdoor adventures. This time around, there's pretty much no sailing. The kids are off to go prospecting out among the fells for gold. But there's a serious drought and their ability to camp beyond the watchful eyes of the grownups is in doubt until a source of water can be found. Also, there's a mysterious man in a squashy hat who seems to be spying on them -- perhaps to jump their gold claim!
As always, it's a wonderful read. There were a couple of points on this one that struck me as a bit dodgy to modern readers:
1.) The kids explore old mine workings! The older children do make a point of telling the younger ones not to go into any caves on their own but of course... Still, it's hard to believe that even the older kids could evaluate how safe/dangerous an old mine shaft might be. In general, the children are presented as extremely competent beyond their years, but this business with the mines is a bit of a stretch.
2.) There's a small dollop of...magic? weird phenomena? The book is usually quite precise in its dividing line between the practical real and the imagination of the kids, and the kids themselves know when to let reality intrude, but here things bleed over a bit and it seems like a departure from the usual format of the books.
Overall, it's still a lot of fun reading, but I'll be happier when the books shift back to the water.
Next up, Agents of Empire: Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits and Spies in the Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean World by Noel Malcolm. To elaborate a bit on the title, it's a history covering the interactions between the Ottoman Empire, the Western European powers and the Balkan states they fought over/through.
Mr. Malcolm tells the story by following two families from Albania, the Bruni and Bruti families. Some of them fought for Christendom at the Battle of Lepanto and became Knights of Malta, a number of them worked as interpreters between the Ottomans and Venice, Rome or other powers and a most of them traded goods and information back and forth across the lines. I have a bit of a fondness for this place and time and in watching how various members of the family dealt with the shifting fortunes of their many employers, you can get a better sense of what was going on.
It's broken up into short, punchy chapters that follow one member of the family and there's obviously a bit of overlap, but they mostly stand on their own. It's not the easiest of reading, but it's mostly dense with people and places named in languages not congruent to English so it was sometimes a bit of a hassle to straighten things out. Still, the work is pretty good and worth checking out. I think there's a lot of material for an RPG campaign.
later
Tom
