Festivus Celebration...

[fajrdrako]

We had a party at work. It turned out to be a good one; I wasn't feeling terribly sociable, but there were a lot of people to talk to, an many of them were interesting. There was live music, which was good, and my coworkers had put a lot of effort into decorating the upper foyer. I drank spiked eggnog - I'm not used to that. The rum was in honour of Captain Jack Sparrow.

Besides talk about the theatre, and gossip, and discussion of tax assessments - the woman who owns a castle thinks her taxes are excessive, and she may be right - I even had some interesting fannish talk with Caroline, who was at San Diego Comic Con last summer. I wish I'd been with her! She taped the talk given by Billy Boyd. Funny how we're both heavily into media fandom but our paths seldom cross; we go to different conventions at different times and put our efforts into different areas even when we follow the same movies or shows. She was asking me about Starsky and Hutch fandom, in which I'm hardly an expert. She's into getting autographs. I'd like to see her collection, but I've neither the patience or the interest in collecting autographs myself - or, put differently, I have all the ones I really want. (Dorothy Dunnett, Neil Gaiman, Guy Gavriel Kay, Frank Miller, Lois McMaster Bujold, Patrick Stewart... for starters.)

I managed to get quite a bit of Christmas shopping done too - and scored a minor coup - and feel pretty good about the day.

Comments

[widget-alley.livejournal.com]

You have a Dunnett autograph?

::swoons::

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think I have Dorothy Dunnett's autograph on every one of her books, and in duplicate editions - though I do have copies without autographs too. They are among my most treasured possessions.

[widget-alley.livejournal.com]

::seriously has drool all down her front. LOTS of it::

[http://users.livejournal.com/_ming/]

Ooh, I was at the Con last summer too, and I saw the Billyness and Davidness and Domness as well. It's amazing how many people show up every year. It was my first time, but I hope to go again.

I'm glad the party was tolerably fine. :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I am so utterly envious of all of you who saw David Wenham at SDCC. I went to the con for several years running but haven't been able to afford it since. I hope to go again, too. It's such a fascinating con and so many of the people I most admire are usually there - I don't mean the movie stars so much, but the writers and artists I most admire and love.

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

What was the minor shopping coup? I'm curious....again!

PS The fic beta is getting there. Did some more on it yesterday. No time today, but hopefully will go over it one last time tomorrow. Just so you don't think I've forgotten, or anything... :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I can explain now - I wanted to give blackbyrde a copy of Fire from Heaven for Christmas, and to give The Persian Boy to lmondegreen. I think they'd like them. I had to do a lot of hunting - after going to half the second-hand bookstores in the city (and finding the Theseus books only) I got on the phone and called every bookstore in the city.... so very many bookstores we have! - and tracked down the last two copies. Which I bought.

I hope they like them as much as I did. Or even half as much.

(Uh... d'you think I'm pimping here?)

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

Devious plan you're hatching there - if they both like the books, that's two souls converted to Renault, and you're two steps closer to achieving World Domination. ;)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's even more diabolical than that. I got two of each book: I'm giving the other set to Beulah, who hasn't read Mary Renault either.

The world is mine!

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

The world is mine!

Or Mary Renault's. *g*

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Or Mary Renault's. *g*

It always was hers, as far as I'm concerned. She can share it with Dorothy Dunnett.

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

And Patrick O'Brian. And Tolkien. And who else? ;)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

O'Brian's not on my list, but Tolkien certainly is. Who else... hmm... Georgette Heyer.

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

Is O'Brian not on your list yet, or did you try the Aubrey/Maturin books and not find them to your liking? If the latter, then I find it quite surprising!

Heyer is good but doesn't quite make my World Domination list.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I tired the Aubrey/Maturin books and didn't much like them - I read the first five, not so much because I was enjoying them but because everyone else I knew who read them loved them and I wondered what was wrong with me. There are many other seafaring novels I liked much better, starting with the Hornblower books, and Dudley Pope, and Alexander Kent. O'Brian has some lovely moments (especially of humour) but I found his characters often irritating and his plot stucture unimpressive. I kept getting impatient with him, and even annoyed. So rather than start book #6 I gave up. Should I persevere? I really felt that if I didn't get into it by then, I was a hopeless case.

I was surprised too.

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I've read the first ten, and have started from the beginning again - currently on book three, HMS Surprise. What do I enjoy about them? The careful elegant prose, the depth of characterisation, the teasing oblique writing (much like Dunnett and Renault) that makes one work at unravelling the puzzles set by a devious author and makes re-reads such a joy, and yes, the humour, of which there is a surprising amount.

If you do feel like giving O'Brian another try, I'd say re-reading from book one would be better than "persevering" (*g*) with the rest of the series. And no, nothing wrong with you if you don't like them, but a wonderful experience if you do get into them.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

If and when I read the books again, or when I go back to them, I'll let you know what I think. It's hard to feel motivated to go back to a long series of novels that I found essentially - I'm not sure what word to use - less than entertaining. There were some scenes and passages that were wonderful, but never sustained for more than a page for me.

And yet there's every reason in the world for me to love these books, given my reading tastes. So strange.