The New Northern Rambler

2023-07-17

The Witches of Wenshar by Barbara Hambly

Publisher: Del Rey

ISBN: 0345329341

"The witches…" follows directly timewise after the Ladies of Mandrigyn and once again is following the ex-mercenary Sun Wolf and is ex-lieutenant and now lover Starhawk in his quest to be trained in the magic he has acquired. Unfortunately Sun Wolf's luck has not really been a blessing to him, as he hears of a wizard named Kaletha who has supposedly found a series of books written by the witches of Wenshar, but who specialized in summoning and controlling demons for their evil machinations.

Suddenly people around sun wolf, Starhawk, Kaletha begin dying, or rather being murdered rather gruesomely and of course Sun Wolf is blamed.

This is a very good book that is the second part of the of the Sun Wolf trilogy. It has been many years since I first read this series, and I had forgotten a lot about it so it was very good to be able to remind myself of how well it had been written, and plotted.

Well worth the read.

2023-07-10

"The Middle Ages: A Graphic History" by Eleanor Janega

Publisher: Icon Books

ISBN: 9781785785917

As the title suggests this is essentially a graphic novel, however with the double twist that it is both drawn in the style of the middle ages, and it's real!

This book takes the reader on a guided tour of some of the many topics that would be part of a mediaeval history course.

In part one Dr. Janega covers such topics as common misconceptions about the middle ages, the mediaeval period and what it was, myths of the dark ages, the fall of Rome and how that affected neighbouring countries. Part two deals with early religions including Christianity Islam Judaism, the various saints etc. Part three deals with the rise of empires. Part four is about the life around the year 1000 and how the majority of christians expected the world to be ending in the immediate future, Which led to various atrocities such as the crusades, the Norman conquest, and a lot of antisemitic violence.

Part five deals with the high middle ages. Part six with the role of women and other groups of people who were and still are marginalized such as sex workers, homosexuals, Jews, Heretics, and lepers in the medieval period.

Part seven deals with the late. Mediaeval period which was dominated by the black death, the 100 years war, the schism in the Catholic Church and various peasant revolts. Part eight deals with the end of the Middle Ages.

Dr. Janega makes the whole of mediaeval history very easy to understand, and this would make this book a valuable addition to any school's library.

2023-06-26

The Ladies of Mandrigyn by Barbara Hambly

Publisher: Del Rey

ISBN: 0345309197

The Ladies of Mandrigyn is the first book in the trilogy that tells the tale of a mercenary captain by the name of sun Wolf, who is kidnapped by the aforementioned ladies to assist them in reading themselves of the wizard king Altiokis Who has essentially enslaved their people of their city, and a good portion of the country itself. Add to this that he's essentially immortal and you have a bit of a problem. Originally the ladies had offered to hire Sun Wolf and his mercenary army to fight Altiokis, however he refused.

The ladies back up plan was therefore to kidnap him and have him train and leave the ladies in the fight against him. Has a little bit of an incentive thing they give him a slow acting poison of which only they had the antidote.

Unbeknownst to both the ladies and Sun Wolf this poison has some rather interesting side effects, that changes his life a fair bit.

This was a very good novel, which I first read many many years ago, and one of Barbara Hambly's earlier ones. She goes on to write the second in the series "The Witches of Wenshar" (1987) and the third "The Dark Hand of Magic" in (1990), which I will be reviewing in the future.

2023-06-19

"The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society" by Eleanor Janega

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

ISBN: 9780393867817

This was a very enjoyable and extremely informative book to read. It gives the reader whole new insights into how women have been treated over the centuries and the reasons behind why they were generally treated so badly. Primarily this was due to the influence of the various flavours of the Christian church, Which essentially blamed women for everything because of the mythology surrounding the original sin.

As a humanist I will freely admit that I do not understand the concept of original sin, and the various other concepts and myths that are listed in the Bible, as for the most part they seem to simply take a concept or an event and find someone or something to blame it on. And while this seems to comfort a large group of religious people in the world it seems like a rather shortsighted way to justify the way society as a whole treats 1/2 of our population.

Dr. Janega goes into a lot of detail as she investigated the various roles that women filled in medieval times, and looked at how real women lived in that era.

I first encountered Dr. Janega on the History Hit YouTube channel where she does the occasional episode on medieval history, which I would highly recommend if you're interested as she gets into some very interesting topics. She is also the creator of the popular "Going Medieval" blog and the author of "The Middle Ages: A Graphic History".

An excellent read with lots of fascinating information. Highly recommended.

2023-06-12

"Support Your Local Wizard" by Diane Duane

Publisher: Guild America Books

ISBN: None listed

"Support Your Local Wizard" is a compilation volume of the first three stories (So You Want to Be a Wizard, Deep Wizardry, & High Wizardry) in the "Young Wizards Series", and tell the tale of two grade school children who discover they are wizards, and are recruited into the local wizards union (for lack of a better term).

Juanita "Nita" Callahan is a young girl who is constantly being bullied by few other girls in her school, and who finds a book (or does it find her?) in her local library when she hiding out from the gang. She teams up with another young wizard Christopher "Kit" Rodriguez, and have a series of interesting adventures.

Now while some people may be inclined t equate these stories with another tale of wizardry about a boy with a scar on his forehead, these stores were written many years before so banish the thought.

I found these stories to be very well written, and while the second is somewhat darker that the first it allows for significant world building, and the three novels work well together. When I first read these I though this was all there was to the series, but I have since discovered that Ms. Duane has written seven more in the series, which I now have to go and find.

A great series.

2023-06-05

"The Long Ships" by Frans G.Bengtsson (Translated by Michael Meyer)

Publisher: P. A. Norstedt Soner Forlag

ISBN: None

The Long Ships is a classic tale of the Vikings and is quite reminiscent of the Icelandic Sagas which I had to read during a course at University, and which I absolutely loved, as they and this book as well give a very good interpretation of what life must have been like in the 10th century. It is said to be one of the best historical novel ever written

This book follows the life of Orm Tostesson who became known as Red Orm or Orm the Far-Travelled, and the expeditions he sailed on from being an novice sailor, to his time a s a slave in the service of Moors, a marriage into royalty. The expeditions he was involved with took him to many lands from England, Spain, and Russia. Along the way he relates tales of King Harald Blue Tooth, the Jomsvikings, and the various attempts made to convert the Vikings to christianity.

This is an excellent book, well worth reading.

2023-05-29

"Elder Race" by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Publisher: Tor Books

ISBN: 9781250768728

Elder Race was a fun book to read, and while it was relatively short at 198 pages it was well worth the read. Mr. Tchaikovsky has written a very interesting story that explores both the anthropological idea of participant observation, as well as exploring the supposed non-interference directive which was part of the backstory of the Star Trek universe, and which was something they routinely violated in virtually every episode.

The elder in this case is a cultural anthropologist by the name of Nyr Illim Tevitch of the Earth Explorer Corps, who is on the planet many light years from Earth in the far distant future. He was left alone on this planet by the other anthropologists and scientists in his team when they were recalled to earth. He has been out of contact with them for over 300 years.

In the distant past he assisted the colonists of this planet in defeating an invading forces, and made a pact with the then ruling monarchy that he would do so again if another crisis arose. Another incident does require his assistance, but it has been well over 100 years between the two events.

This was a very good book, and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in stories that deal with internal conflict and such. I would've liked to have seen more exploration of the anthropological concepts, but that's likely because I have an anthropologist myself.

Mr. Tchaikovsky has written a number of other books, and I will be definitely keeping my eye out for them.

2023-05-22

"Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes" by Rob Wilkins

Publisher: Doubleday

ISBN: 9780857526632

I purposely do not read a lot of biographies and especially autobiographies primarily because for the most part they're boring.

This book about the life of Terry Pratchett the author of all the Discworld novels, and many others by Rob Wilkins is the exact opposite. It is interesting well written, and essentially keeps you wanting more. Yes, I know that's another way of saying interesting but I'm treating it as two different things because a story should keep you wanting to read more just to find out what happens whereas to be interesting and wanting to keep you reading is more of a challenge.

To say that Sir Terry Pratchett had a interesting life is an understatement. He started his writing career as a journalist, and quickly moved on to be the best selling author of many books. Mr. Wilkins, who was Sir Terry's personal assistant for over 20 years gives fans a detailed insight into his life, one that I'm sure all will want to read.

Highly recommended.