Archive | August 2011

Things I have liked this week

Aug11
Social media explained
Writing stuff
There is a tension between being persistent with a project and knowing when is the right time to give up. Novels take a long time to write, but how long is too long? This article on deciding when to start a new story has some interesting ideas.
Space stuff
While I was on holiday this year, I picked up some postcards with amazing images of earth taken from the International Space Station. The one of Britain and Ireland seems to have made it into a couple of papers in the summer. They were taken by Italian astronaut, Paulo Nespoli, and the whole set can be seen at the European Space Agency’s photostream.  

A Read of A Dance with Dragons – Part 17

Aug10
Chapter 16 – Daenerys

Xaro Xhoan Daxos has come to visit. He’s brought erotic dancers with him to entertain Dany as they eat. He’s also bought thirteen galleys – the ships Daenerys asked him for when she was in Qarth. Then his price was her hand in marriage and a dragon, now it is that she must leave for Westeros and let things in the Free Cities get back to normal. Daenerys asks him to help her start trading and he tells her that Meereen has nothing but slaves and olives – and the previous rulers of Meereen burnt all the olive groves. Daenerys says she will consider it and ask Admiral Groleo to look over the ships.
The next day she assembles her council. The Dothraki don’t want to go anywhere by boat. Groleo says the boats are old but well maintained, but taking them to Westeros will be tricky. Her Meereenese advisers ask her not to leave them to the mercy of the Yunkai. Dany says they can come to Westeros with her, and her Mother’s Men say they will follow wherever she goes. They acknowledge that thirteen ships are not enough and Grey Worm say the Unsullied will take the demon road. Dany decides she will not abandon Meereen to the same fate of Astapor. She will stay and Westeros will wait.
Daenerys summons Xaro Xhoan Daxos who presents her with a tapestry showing a map of the world. She tells him she is staying, that she cannot leave. He weeps and tells her he should have killed her in Qarth. She dismisses him but his ships stay in the bay. The next day, a messenger brings her a bloody glove, a declaration of war.
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Enemies who pretend to be friends eh? It seems like Dany is beset on all sides. How will she protect Meereen? How can she feed her people? I think it is the right moral decision to stay and secure what she has won. If she leaves, she will leave vulnerable people behind and the journey will severely weaken her forces. Besides, she needs to learn how to rule first. Otherwise she’ll make all her mistakes in King’s Landing and will end up fighting all the time. I am so not surprised Xaro turned out to be a dick.

100 Books in 2011 challenge: Voodoo River

Aug9
I’m way behind on the 100 books in 2011 challenge, so I’m picking short, easy reads to try to catch up. Robert Crais is an easy read, and Voodoo River comes in at less than 300 pages.

Elvis Cole is hired to find out about the birth parents of an adopted woman, who is a TV star born in Louisiana. He finds out that her father was black and that her mother’s father killed him, facts known to a local private detective and a local crime lord. The mother and her husband know about the murder and that it was covered up. They’re being blackmailed and the husband, the sheriff, turns a blind eye to the crime lord’s human trafficking business.

It’s a pretty complicated plot to be wrapped up in a short book. It never feels like anything is being revealed too quickly, whilst at the same time, everything is there to make it all add up. It is well done and this is probably the best of Crais’ that I’ve read.

Characterisation is handled well and most characters are reasonably fleshed out. The dialogue got on my nerves a little. Cajun dialect was indicated by dropped letters and phonetic spellings rather than by cadence and word choice. It often felt heavy-handed. Other than that I enjoyed it.

A Read of A Dance with Dragons – Part 16

Aug8
Chapter 15 – Davos

Davos lands in White Harbor in the guise of an ordinary sailor. He’s familiar with White Harbor from his smuggling days and notes that the defences seem much better than they were before. In the inner harbour there is a war galley flying Tommen’s arms. Davos walks about for a bit, seeing what’s what. He learns that refugees are flocking to the city and any boy or man that wants it is being given a spearman’s job. He goes to a smugglers tavern and lurks in a shadowy corner, listening for gossip. He doesn’t learn much he didn’t already know, except that no one is talking about how Stannis went to the Wall to save the Seven Kingdoms from the Others, and that a Queen in the East has some dragons. He wonders what he should do for a moment, but in the end he is loyal to Stannis above all else. He goes to the castle.

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Basically, the plot point here is that Davos has arrived in White Harbor and is going to see Manderly. Borrell apparently sent him on his way, probably having decided it’s best not to get involved. It feels like quite a lot of padding. There’s repetition of stuff we already know from other POVs and the new information that Manderly seems to be investing quite a lot in his defences, gathering men and building ships. Also, there’s a bit of suspense created. I still don’t know how this is going to pan out.

A-Z blogging challenge: J is for Job

Aug7

Have to have a job to pay the bills, but it’s far away and I spend three hours a day commuting. J is for Job in the sense that I don’t get paid for writing and I like to have nice stuff.

But there’s also an element in which having a job meets some emotional needs that writing doesn’t. A couple of years ago I gave up my day job to focus on writing for a little while. It was amazing and fulfilling and as soon as I get the chance, I’ll do it again. However, when I went back to work I realised there had been something I’d missed. A job offers the opportunity to see the results of your labours quickly; it offers tangible results clearly linked to specific actions. The pay-off on a writing project takes a lot longer and sometimes it can be easy to lose sight of your gains.

A Read of A Dance with Dragons – Part 15

Aug6
Chapter 14 – Tyrion

Tyrion is on a riverboat with Griff, Young Griff and the rest of their party. They’re heading down the Rhoyne to Volantis. The party includes two Dornish orphans who’ve returned home to the Rhoyne and who own the boat. Along with Griff, Young Griff, Rolly and Haldon, there is also Septa Lemore, who Tyrion fantasises about. Griff is denying Tyrion wine, so he’s sobered up and not overly happy about it. Griff sleeps all day and guards the boat at night. During the day, Rollo trains Young Griff in arms, Lemore in matters of faith, and Haldon in everything else.

In the evening, Haldon and Tyrion play Cyvasse, a game like chess that has become recently popular. Tyrion has been losing badly so far and he suggests that they wager for secrets. This time Tyrion wins.

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Ahh, it’s drunk Tyrion that’s obnoxious, stupid Tyrion then. It was frustrating not to find out what Tyrion found out. I think I might have been supposed to picked something more up from this chapter. Hmm. Or maybe it was just about getting to know the characters a bit more.

A Read of A Dance with Dragons – Part 14

Aug5
Chapter 13 – Bran

Bran and his party are at the bottom of a steep climb up to a door in the mountainside. They are frozen and starving. The elk died and they ate it. It lasted for a week but that was all. Coldhands seems to be expecting Others. Jojen is nearly done for. Bran tries to motivate them all. He knows through Summer that the three wolves are following.

They start the climb. It’s steep and slippery and they are almost there when Hodor slips and falls. Bran is crushed beneath him and then wights start crawling out of the ground. They’ve been ambushed. Bran is thrown out of his basket. He slips into Hodor’s skin; for all his size and strength, Hodor doesn’t know how to fight and is terrified. Without Bran he would die. Meera, Coldhands, Summer and Hodor are fighting hard but the zombies are really hard to kill. Bran sees someone set the zombies on fire which gives them time to get into the cave. The cave is warded which means that the zombies can’t get in but also means Coldhands can’t come with them.

The someone turns out to be a child of the forest. She leads them down inside the mountain to the three-eyed crow, who is a man on a throne, entwined and pierced through by weirwood roots. Bran thinks that there must be a massive and very old weirwood grove above them. Bran asks if the crow can fix his legs and the crow says he will never walk again, but that he will learn to fly.

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That was hairy. Varamyr’s lurking about; I don’t suppose he’s up to any good. So, the three-eyed crow is a man, not a child of the forest, and was once a man of the Night’s Watch. Hmm, wonder who it is.

When Hodor fell, I thought they weren’t going to make it. So what happens now? Who will Bran become?

Things I have liked this week

Aug4
Writing stuff
This article is about judging the quality of your writing. It makes an interesting point about how agents and publishers are not in the business of judging writing quality, but instead, the marketability of the product. When I’m thinking about self-publishing, the little voice in my head says ‘but who will tell me it’s good enough?’. This article provides an answer. Sort of.
The graffiti at the station where I work
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Pretty clouds of hydrogen gas. The universe is awesome.

A Read of A Dance with Dragons – Part 13

Aug3
Chapter 12 – Reek
Reek is in a dungeon eating rats because he is starving. He hears footsteps approach and is terrified because he has been tortured. He has lost some fingers, toes and teeth, is being starved and kept in the dark. He struggles to remember who is – or at least who he’s been told he is. Who is was before is even harder to remember. He recalls that he tried to escape with a girl called Kyra, to go back to Winterfell, but it turned out to be a trap because Lord Ramsay Bolton likes to hunt people. The footsteps belong to two boys, who come in to the dungeon and mock him. He begs to be left alone but Ramsay wants him. The boys are Little Walder and Big Walder. They take Reek into the castle, where Ramsay and his men are dining. Ramsay has two guests, one of whom recognises that Reek is Theon Greyjoy, white-haired and three stone thinner.
Ramsay says that he’s going to marry Arya Stark and he wants Reek to come with him, as a sobered, obedient Theon.
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Oh boy. That was just awful. Sure, Theon was an arse, and a bit of nasty piece of work, but no one deserves that. Eugh. It was horrible, and I feel a bit sick after reading that. But, hang on, why would Ramsay want Theon at the wedding? Does he want Theon to tell him whether or not it’s the real Arya? I thought the Bolton’s were in on the plan.

A Read of A Dance with Dragons – Part 12

Aug2
Chapter 11 – Daenerys

Daenerys is woken in the early hours of the morning as nine of her people have been killed by the Sons of the Harpy. One of them is Missandei’s brother. She allow Skahaz to torture the owner of a tavern where three were killed. Otherwise they have no leads.

She comforts Missandei who says Daenerys is the mother of them all. But Daenerys can’t go back to sleep because she is worrying that she can’t protect anyone. In the morning she takes a bath and Quaithe of Asshai appears with more riddles. Quaithe says beware the perfumed seneschal. She says that suitors will come, first the pale mare, then the Kraken, the dark flame, the lion and the griffin, the sun’s son and the mummer’s dragon.
When Daenerys is dressed and has eaten she goes to the purple hall for her audiences. Ser Barristan Selmy has piled her ebony bench with pillows. She spends the time making judgements and trying to be fair. The owner of the slave pits, Hizdahr zo Loraq, comes back, this time with seven former slaves, champions who want to fight. It is the only skill they have and they want to earn money. Daenerys says she will consider it.
Daenerys leaves the hall and asks Barristan to tell her of his escape from King’s Landing. He says he disguised himself as a peasant and no one recognised him. He says he watched Eddard Stark’s execution and Dany say’s he was a traitor. Barristan tells her that Eddard was an honourable man who wouldn’t condone Robert’s desire to assassinate her when she was pregnant. Dany says the Starks had a hand in the slaughter of her family and Barristan returns that it was Lannister work. Dany says they are all guilty, then breaks off, saying she needs to see the pit.
The Dragon Pit is under the pyramid and currently holds Viserion and Rhaegal. The dragons are locked up so they don’t kill any more children. Daenerys thinks of all the stories about dragons and the battles they were used in that she heard as a child, and realises that none of them talk about how dragons were fed or controlled. Drogon could not be captured. They tried several times and then he stopped coming back to Meereen.
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So, who are the suitors? The kraken is Victarion on behalf of Euron; the lion must be Tyrion and the sun’s son is Quentyn Martell. I don’t know who the rest are. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. I think the pale mare has been mentioned before though?
The slave pit is a real conundrum, isn’t it? But rulers can’t ban stuff just because they don’t like it. It seems like this is the circuses part of the ‘bread and circuses’ guide to ruling. People need some fun – even if that fun is watching people hacking each other to pieces. It also raises the question of consent. The former slaves want to fight because they had better lives as slaves than they do as free men, but they have an opportunity to make their own money, doing the only thing they know how.
And the dragons are in a pit. That’s sad. It’s a really interesting point about how she manages her weapons. Can dragons be trained? Will Drogon come back? I think he will and he’ll be huge. But what will Dany do with him?
And poor old Dany doesn’t get to have Daario. That sucks. If she were a man she could have whoever she wanted.