time passes and I grow up ... Well, OK, I get older. I have not yet reached a venerable age but I am already in his thirties. Once again, my dear and tender love also known for his blog Papothé , spoiled me again: tea and books!
Nothing less than the bible ornithologist (I am not at all) and another guide on birds, two books which complement each other well and I advise warmly. I will not chronicle here below, but I recommend to the curious nature and birds! Consider two books meets sweet names:
- "The Ornithological Guide" by Lars Svensson et al. (published by Oxford University Press) - "440 Birds Volker Diershke (published by Oxford University Press)
To support this reading, I could drink a delicious Pu Xian ErFo of 2008, home Palace Tea, tasted in my beautiful new cup that goes very well with the teapot received last year for my birthday .
Thanks to her and above all do not hesitate to visit his blog Papothé .
Robert Charles Wilson is my favorite author and discovery in 2010, notably through the most excellent " Spin " and" The Chronolithes ". I therefore continued in 2011 the discovery of his work including his "Darwinia" read in shared reading with Lhisbei and Cachou under the Winter Time Challenge.
+ + + The back cover + + +
March 1912, Europe and parts of England suddenly disappear, replaced by a mainland fauna and flora not land that one does not take long to appoint the Darwin. For the young Guilford Law, this tragedy has nothing of a miracle or divine punishment, rather a mystery that science will one day solve With this certainty, he will sacrifice everything to be part of the first major exploring expedition intended to sink the heart of the unknown continent, an expedition of violent death in violent death, led him away he could not imagine ... Nominated for the prestigious Hugo Award in 1999, Darwinia is a work of singular ambition, which evokes the glorious era when scientists were also explorers and adventurers
+ + + + + + My opinion
Since
reading "The Chronolithes" , this is pure pleasure for me to dive into the work of Robert Charles Wilson , with of course the pinnacle reached for "Spin" . Fifth reading of the author so for me, and it is always so pleasant. Of course it is not yet the level reached by the two works above named, but there's already here the seeds of the great art of the author.
This novel has everything from the start of an alternate history. In 1912, that the content of the European continent disappears to make room for something more. It's the same continent but devoid of human presence and cover of vegetation unknown. An ancient land unexplored opens a continent covered with new vegetation strange and unknown animals like from another planet. Strange phenomenon, scary, and even fatal for all the inhabitants of Europe have disappeared. In short we are facing a new territory to reclaim and why Americans competed the game with the English colonies of emigrants returning to the country to rebuild the territory of London and the English crown. But what does all this represent? For some, this is simply a divine punishment or a miracle. For others an incomprehensible phenomenon. Still, a group of U.S. scientists set sail for the continent in order to study the content of this change. Guilford Law is the game, as a photographer, and he goes in this great expedition of exploration in the hope of bringing historic pictures of a continent in rediscovery. Of course, there's a trick that will slip, but Robert Charles Wilson yarn comes to us with this dizzy adventure explorers. I loved all these passages discoveries of the continent and this unnamed city that had all of a temple Lovecraftian. We also find in this text a bunch of references to the great old sci-fi turn of the century (Edgar Rice Burroughs , etc.), and the SF pulp magazines of the time. Too bad there is no more descriptive of the plants and animals Darwin.
Guilford Besides, we follow the lives of his wife by expatriate English requirement on the island, forced s'adaptéer to this new life and faces to the supposed death of her husband. Vision and a woman's life in a community of European settlers. We will also follow the throes of a mind possessed by a god ... An evil being who can take control of his person at all times and also making immortal the same time. So for three, three lives are linked by a few things but three lives that do not really believe. What is certain is that Robert Charles Wilson offers us a fine gallery of endearing characters, especially for Guilford Law.
We feel already there, the beginnings of a romantic way of describing things to Wilson . It takes three different characters and we follow their ways of reacting to an external phenomenon that disrupts everything on earth. We find once again that human way of approaching the world, get an external threat and then acting on it. But there is also ultimately a little something like thriller Wilson knows how to make a good dose of adventure SF background.
And then there 's dizzy: "Maybe we're all spirits in a machine" (P304) . After frightening reflection of this novel but finally summarizing the density of vertigo offered by the author. We come here to something more unsettling a novel by Philip K. Dick . It discusses the concept of reality and tangibility, free will, etc.. Or do we live as self-reproducing loops mathematics in a machine galaxy beyond us? Scary! But then, are we really in an alternate history or a novel about parallel worlds? Well both for the good half of this novel is an alternate history, but differs in a while to develop the theme of parallel worlds and reality.
short, rich themes, a novel that reads very well and donned easily. Endearing characters and a certain richness in the book. Nevertheless this is not the best Wilson, and say it is also true master of a novel that displeases many people. Perhaps in these parts too scientific (hard SF?) Too rich vocabulary that is abstruse and easily lose the thread of the narrative and thus the depths of history. Y 'it may be a little something bof on length, it is this struggle between good and evil too limited a story of an angel and demons are not really in fact . A good novel but is still far from the top of Wilson. A novel that will please some and displease probably others. A novel that has potential but can not be worn thoroughly as in "Spin" . Who will want, but it's still a good book.
+ + + + + + But still
Playing with shared common Cachou and Lhisbei . Check out their review!
"From now things are going at the end of a long winter" by Francis Dannemark
First I want to thank Editions Robert Laffont for this partnership realized on the Critical Mass Literary (launched by Babelio ) because this book is really a beautiful book, a real joy, seeing a heart shot.
+ + + The back cover + + +
"I just need to travel alone and stay silent twenty-four hours to confront the passage of time. In reality, I needed something else. I needed, I believe, share some time with an amiable stolen unknown. "
In the midst of weariness at the heart of the economic crisis, Christopher, a cultural Belgian fifty years on the brink of bankruptcy, wants to slow down and refocus on values more accurate. Because "life points from time to time that the world is very small," he decides to stop and leave. It will be for Portugal, by train. As the sky clouds adds, Christopher crosses on the station platform a stranger, Emma, he will find time to travel between Brussels and Lisbon, during a long and beautiful conversation at once tender, poignant, and always sincere. Dannemark Francis, with all the delicacy and elegance that characterize it, gives us his usual short novel, subtle and delicate, the things of life.
+ + + + + + My opinion
I had occasion to read a book by Francis Dannemark it few years ago. It was "Man of September" , a book that I remembered as a good time, a short but pleasant moment. Once again I see Francis Dannemark an expert on short distances not the kind you get into a novel where the mileage you get lost on their way through mountains and forests. Not Francis Dannemark likes brevity seems to control it and it pretty well with this novel it. Heavy mere 91 pages, Belgian author offers us a novella really beautiful!
Gifted with a beautiful title and a back cover of the most attractive, " From now things are going at the end of a long winter" had everything to please me. And much to say at the outset, it has reached that expected pleasure and more. This short novel or novella, of Dannemark Francis is a true gem. I am regularly Order this book to read and reread a passage, a sentence or a moment of life, just for the pleasure of eating. Because yes, sometimes, a good book is like a good Belgian chocolate: it is eaten by keeping long finish.
over the rails, while the miles pass beneath their feet, the two characters in the book will meet and appreciate. Untying all the memories of their lives, small and big things, what to expect and what we lost, what life gives and takes. Francis Dannemark crystallizes in this novel a lot of times, small pleasures like great sadness. A book resolutely turned towards the human a text that discusses the pleasure to slow down, take time to enjoy life and the present moment. In the end, you come out with pleasure and happiness of reading a novel that has just one flaw to be too short. But it is so thin it has at least the advantage of being easily re-read. Thank you sir Dannemark for this beautiful moment of reading!
+ + + + + + But still
I thank once again the Editions Robert Laffont to read this book as part of the Critical Mass . I also thank Babelio for this action and its renewed confidence in my columns.
First puzzled, then alarmed, I hesitated to buy this book. And yet, once I got it from hands, knowing just what to expect, it was a pleasure from start to finish! A very good book and a great success speaking SF soldiers and suicide bombers to the collapse of the Japanese empire.
+ + + The back cover + + +
" The officers and men of Imperial Japan are all members of a suicide bomber. " Information Office of the Government of Japan, 1944.
1944. Faced with the advance of U.S. forces in the Pacific, the high command Imperial Japanese Navy uses a tactic of last resort: its pilots to commit suicide attacks in dragons. Soon another fire descends from heaven on the Rising Sun. The B-29 Superfortresses miss all the big cities with napalm bombs. Only a few pilots are brave enough or crazy show to confront them on their dragons fight ... Three destinies are swept by the winds of war. Hideo, a small boy who lives inside the suffering of Japan. Tatsuo, his older brother, a student enrolled in a suicide squadron. Finally Captain Obayashi, master archer who imposes the "strategy of the certain death."
+ + + + + + My opinion
start with some explanations ... I was initially scared to get into this work, a little cooled by reading "Bloodsilver" where Xavier Mauméjean wrote in collaboration with Johan Heliot under the pseudonym of American Indians Wayne Barrow . You can also find this column in these pages by following this link it . But nevertheless intrigued by the subject and the treatment more widely than historical science fiction. So, I started in this adventure with great interest that was awarded instead.
On the other hand I think some people will not like the side a bit cold, deliberately drained by the author who imposes rules of writing such as Banruku (Japanese puppet theater). The book also speaks Japanese imperialist Japan of a decadent and vindictive, a crumbling empire but who will not give up, who would rather die than surrender. So a war story, dealing with this fall and the lives of these warriors of death, without the glory. A subject and a way of writing that can not please everyone so. By
cons of my side I can confess a certain fascination for Japan and its code warrior, being myself practicing traditional Japanese martial arts. So follow this historical treatment of the end of an empire was very interesting. Xavier Mauméjean discusses patriotism exacerbated by a militarist Japan and vindictive. A Japan where the cult of the Emperor is part of everyday life. A country that sends its children to commit suicide in order not to declare himself the loser. An island that is pounded by the United States, an Empire déliquescent carried by propaganda rather than realism. A country that sees its end very close but denies al.
Xavier Mauméjean cutting his book on playing the elements metal, water, wood fire, and earth, the five elements of Chinese thought. This choice is symbolic because China was a country humiliated by Japanese imperialism, the territory where the Japanese have committed atrocities and that no names Xavier Mauméjean denounces in his novel through Mr. Nagayama, teacher campaign, which find quickly brought to heel by propaganda. Of these five elements, Xavier Mauméjean cut his story, talking to various characters in turn while maintaining consistency. It combines various angles, including Hideo, kid friendly campaigns that undergoes the war from inside the country and who dreams only of his brother became a pilot in aviation empire. The latter, Tatsuo, a student pilot before becoming a dragon for the Imperial Navy and become a suicide bomber. Through this figure we'll live the life of these suicide bombers, their fears, their suffering, their heroism to the extremist, a symbol of a decadent empire near the end and ready for anything. Captain Obayashi is the third character that we follow, and it is one that represents the idélogie Japanese, who will push all to the end rather than accept defeat. Three for and three different angles. Three ways of approaching a turning point in Japanese history: the defeat of the Empire forever.
The story of Xavier Mauméjean very informative, it feels like much in the way of treating history, close to the historical novel in the way of describing the material and acts of war. I found it enjoyable without falling into the too much, without falling into an endless followed descriptive of acts of war or combat equipment.
Regarding how to deal characters, it would almost be afraid to become attached. Everything is played from the start: we know that Japan will lose the war, then who will die and how? But more precisely, Xavier Mauméjean speaks of his characters without falling into a certain pathos, and its handling of the text is playing great. At the risk of cooling some readers, but there is a tone almost Japanese in the manner of speaking, with just enough detachment and proximity.
Regarding dragons, they are there, as if from prehistory they survived as a special branch of aquatic dinosaurs, dragons yes because its water animals here. The dragon is also a symbolic animal because it is also an important figure in Asian culture, so it was okay to be appropriated without making it the center of the book. The interest lies in the kamikaze and the fall of that empire.
short, "Dew of fire" was my real pleasure, even more surprising that I was not expecting that at all. I was expecting something more rough, more warlike, maybe just a series of heroic battles suicidal magnified ... But interviews and other feedback about this book intrigued me and I did well to buy and read this book. It is a very good book, maybe not the kind of book that everyone will treat as a masterpiece, but a book that has the merit of treating a subject of history with good tone and a certain originality of approach. I say bravo Mr. Mauméjean , you fooled me this time. Keep it up!
