Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

Genre: Non-fiction, mythology
304 pages, 6.5 hours (Audible)

Neil Gaiman is a popular writer of short stories, novels, graphic novels, comics and more. He is particularly known for his novels Stardust, American Gods and Coraline, as well as the Sandman comic book series.

Synopsis

Norse Mythology is exactly what it says on the tin, a book about Norse Mythology. This is not a novel. Technically it is a non-fiction book, depending if you call mythology fiction or not. What it is, is a collection of mythological stories from Norse Mythology, telling tales of Odin, Thor, Loki and a whole host of other gods, giants and men (but mostly gods and giants). The stories are roughly chronological - starting with creation and ending with Ragnarok, the end of the world - and are told in a contemporary style.

Who Should Read This

You should read this if you are interested in Norse Mythology, particularly if you are not overly familiar with it or want a recap. You should consider reading it if you have struggled with the style of previous books on this topic. Even if you've never been interested in Norse Mythology before, you should consider reading this if you like short, interesting adventure stories. Readers of fantasy particularly will probably enjoy these tales.

My Verdict

I really enjoyed this book. I'm vaguely familiar with Norse Mythology, having come across Odin, Thor and Loki before in other books, but most of the stories I was hearing for the first time. As the author suggests in the introduction, I imagined myself sat warming myself round a campfire on a cold Nordic winter night, listening to these tales. They're all easy to read, fairly simple stories, and none of them are long. The author adopts a fairly colloquial and modern style for these tales, no high blown language but a simple, direct approach. For me it really worked. As one continuous narrative it doesn't work too well, there were some gaps, but you've got to remind yourself that this is real not fiction (again, as far as mythology can be considered real), the stories have been passed down the centuries and not all have survived. I'm not sure to what extent this book covers all the surviving Norse myths, or whether it is just a selection of what still exists, but it has whet my appetite to read more about Norse myths and mythology in general. Which I think is what the author had in mind.

I liked most of the stories a lot so picking favourites is difficult, but I did particularly like the story about how Thor's Hammer and other treasures of the gods came to be made, and also loved the story of Thor and Loki's journey to the land of the giants. Oh and Freya's wedding!

Notes on the Audiobook

I listened to this as an Audiobook, from Audible.co.uk, and as an audiobook I have to say it really worked. The author narrated the book himself, which adds something to it I think, it is more expressive and more real. Listening to the stories on audio is in a funny sort of way listening to them in their original medium - these were oral stories passed down the generations and only written down relatively recently so it is no wonder the audiobook works so well. That said, I'd like to get a paperback copy too when it comes out, to re-read some of the stories and that will help me to remember them. There's a lot of names of people (gods) and places which I can't imagine how they are spelt, and perhaps wouldn't recognise them written down which is a shame, but that can't be helped.

I'm giving this book 9/10.

An Introduction to Goodreads

If you like books and reading but haven’t heard of Goodreads.com then you are in for a treat. It is the best website on the internet for books, period, and it is completely free. That’s not to say there aren’t other good books sites out there, but Goodreads is so big and covers so much!

What is Goodreads?

I am going to start with what it isn’t. It isn’t a shop. You can’t buy books on it (though it does provide links to places where you can buy books). A couple of years ago it was bought by Amazon, but for the most part Amazon have not interfered with the site except to add a couple of useful features to link to Amazon/Kindle if you want to.

So what is it? Goodreads is all of the following:

• ·         A social networking site for book lovers
• ·         A book cataloguing system
• ·         A huge book club (or thousands of different book clubs to be precise)
• ·         A book discovery engine
• ·         A place to get free books

Catalog Your Books

I’ve been using the site for a few years now, and used a couple of similar, smaller book sites before that. A lot of people can’t remember what books they’ve read a few years ago, or remember anything about them. I don’t have that problem. Whenever I read a book, I add it to one of my virtual shelves. Everyone has a currently reading shelf, a digital equivalent of the stack of books on their bedside table perhaps. When you finish a book, you can mark it as complete, give it a rating and write a review if you want to. This way, you can keep track of what books you’ve read and what you thought of them. Other people can see what you’ve read too, and what you thought.

Social Networking

Unlike Facebook, this is Social Networking with purpose! You can add friends like you do on Facebook, but rather than inane updates about your social life they will be able to see what you are reading, read reviews you have posted and compare how you are doing on challenges. They can also suggest books to you that they think you will like, and you can do the same for them. For the most part, friends on Goodreads are only there when you want them though, and their updates are not in your face like they are on Facebook et al.

Book Groups

Groups is one of Goodreads best features. They are part book club, part forum for discussing books. There are hundreds if not thousands of groups on Goodreads, quite a few with many thousands of members. Most groups are thematic based on a particular genre, or based on country or region, and you can be a member of as many groups as you like. I’m a member of the UK Book Group, Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy, Non Fiction Book Club and Around the World in 80 Books to name but a few. Being a member of a group doesn’t actually come with any obligations, it just allows you to read and post in all the forum discussions. Some people are very involved in one or two groups, posting regularly and even making friends on there, others just post occasionally or even just read the discussions without ever posting. Most groups have one or several books of the month, it is up to you whether the read the book and take part in the discussions.

Discovering New Books

In the days before the internet, people tended to choose the books they read based on browsing the shelves of their local bookshop or library, getting recommendations from friends or maybe reading reviews in the newspaper. Today though, the internet opens up much more opportunity for discovering new books, particularly lesser known gems. Along with Amazon, Goodreads is the best place on the internet for finding new books to read. There’s the discussion groups, book reviews, newsletters, recommendations and Goodreads suggestions, based on books you’ve read recently. Just by using the site, you will find your To Be Read pile growing larger and larger, and the books on them will probably be more to your tastes, with less chance of ending up with books you don’t like.

Get Free Books

Authors and book publishers offer free books all the time to bloggers and journalists to help them get publicity for their books. Goodreads democratizes this, by running loads of giveaways. At any one time there are lots of draws you can enter for free books, just by clicking a button. The site is really up front about how many copies of each book are on offer, and how many have requested them so far, so you have a good idea what your chances are. So if you want to be in with a chance of free books, join Goodreads and get entering the giveaways!

This is just a flavour of some of what Goodreads offers, but there’s lots more besides. The best thing to do is join and then just start exploring the site. You won’t regret it! In the coming weeks I'm intending to write some more articles about Goodreads and how to get the most out of it - so watch this space!

A Guide to the Books of Peter F Hamilton

I have decided to periodically post a guide to individual authors, starting with some of my favourite authors. First up is Peter F Hamilton, a popular author of science fiction space operas.

About the Author

Peter F Hamilton is a British author, born in 1960 in Rutland, England's smallest county. He began writing in 1987, getting several short stories published before his first novel, Mindstar Rising, came out in 1993. Since then he has published many novels, all in the science fiction genre apart from a recent series of young adult fantasy novels. His novels are usually set across a vast galactic landscape, with space travel, aliens and lots of future technology. The science is plausible and consistent but without loads of detail - this isn't hard sci-fi. His books have a lot of similarities with fellow British authors Iain M Banks and Alastair Reynolds.

Peter F Hamilton's Books

His first three books were a near future science fiction detective series, featuring psychic PI Greg Mandel. Unlike the rest of his books, these are in some respects a bit dated now, but still really interesting, portraying an England recovering from years of an oppressive communist regime. The books are:

Mindstar Rising (1993)
A Quantum Murder (1994)
The Nano Flower (1995)

They are all mid-size books in the 300-400 page spectrum. In contrast to his later books...

Confederation Universe Books

After quite small scale, near future science fiction, Hamilton moved onto a far future series written on a huge scale, with his Night's Dawn Trilogy. The first book is also in my all time top 10 reads. It is set 600 years in the future, on a distant world where a group of settlers are literally hacking out a new colony from the virgin forest. Something happens out there however, that throws the whole galaxy into chaos and threatens the continued existence of the human race...

The Reality Dysfunction (1996)
The Neutronium Alchemist (1997)
The Naked God (1999)

There are also a couple of companion books:

A Second Chance at Eden (1998)- A book of short stories set in the Confederation universe.
The Confederation Handbook (2000) - A non fiction guide to the Confederation Universe, compiled from the author's notes.

Commonwealth Universe

After writing  The Night's Dawn Trilogy, the author decided to move on to a completely different, unrelated set of stories. Set in the universe of the 'Commonwealth' several hundred years in the future, faster than light travel may not have been invented, but instead there are wormholes linking hundreds of planets. Humans may fill the galaxy, but there are various alien races which humans co-exist with in the galaxy relatively peacefully. Rejuvenation and memory stores give near immortality, and life is good for many. Then a strange astronomical event is spotted in the night sky, further out than anyone has gone before, and the safe, cossetted world of the Commonwealth is suddenly under threat.

This series is made up of two duologies, a trilogy and a standalone novel. The best place to start is Misspent Youth if you want to (see below), or Pandora's Star. Don't try to read them out of order.

Misspent Youth (2002) - A slim volume, not like his other books. It isn't well regarded - and can be easily skipped - but does set up the universe of the Commonwealth, showing the beginnings of rejuvenation technology and examines some of the implications.

Pandora's Star (2004) -
Judas Unchained (2005)

The Dreaming Void (2007)
The Temporal Void (2008)
The Evolutionary Void (2010)

The Abyss Beyond Dreams (2014)
Night Without Stars (2016)

Other Books

A children's fantasy series, The Queen of Dreams, perfect for 9-11 year olds apparently:

The Secret Throne (2015)
The Hunting of the Princes (2016)
A Voyage Through Air (2017 - forthcoming)

Fallen Dragon (2001) - A standalone space opera adventure, in a similar style to his other books.

Great North Road (2012) - A spectacular single volume novel, it weighs in at nearly a 1000 pages, and is set in a completely separate universe to his other books, but there are many similarities in style and content.

Manhatten in Reverse (2011) - A book of short stories, including a titular novella.

He has also written a young adult sci-fi novel, Lightstorm, and several novellas: Watching Trees Grow, Family Matters and A Window Into Time.

Links

Official website - He occasionally writes blog posts, and it has information about his books. It is a bit out of date though.

The Unisphere - A decent fan site covering the author's works.

2016 interview - A short interview with the author

Facebook page - Peter F Hamilton's Facebook page. He posts on here regularly, so is probably the best place online to find latest news about the author and his books.

So that's it. Definitely worth checking out if you like space based science fiction on an epic scale. My recommendation for a starting point would be either The Reality Dysfunction or Pandora's Star. Or if you want a standalone novel that gives a good flavour of what his books are like, try Fallen Dragon or Great North Road.

A Trio of Classic Science Fiction Novels

I'm steaming ahead with my book challenge at the very least, 10 books so far out of my target of 40. According to Goodreads I am 4 books ahead of schedule, though I feel like I will be losing some ground over the next few weeks as I'm about a quarter of the way through the 950 page Tolstoy opus, Anna Karenina. Anyway back to the science fiction.

The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov

The Caves of Steel is the first book in Asimov's Robot series, which has multiple novels and many short stories in it. This book takes place in the near-ish future, at a time when robots were still in their infancy. Most robots in this book are dumb things, not a great leap from artificial intelligences of today. This book features detective Elijah Baley, and possibly the first of the truly intelligent robots, Daneel Olivaw. An important ambassador has been murdered, and it is Baley and Daneel's job to investigate the crime and discover the culprit, to prevent a greater crisis.

This book has been on my to be read list for a long time now, and I finally got around to it after picking up a cheap paperback copy. The detective story itself is quite a basic one, but it was the world building and the great ideas that really got me hooked on this book. Considering it was written in (checks Wikipedia) 1954, it has aged really, really well. Okay so the computers they are talking about are pretty basic and possibly involved punched cards, and some of the numbers are a bit off (the 8 billion population may be several times that of Asimov's era, but today's population is close to that) but otherwise it is very believable. The political/social system described is bordering on communist, but is still quite believable, and some of the technology was a delight (I loved the idea of the moving walkways where you stepped from lane to lane, which increase in speed each time). Overall, a great, short book, still very relevant and enjoyable today and a good start to his Robot series.

The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl & C M Kornbluth

This is a 1950's classic science fiction novel by the writing team of Frederick Pohl and C M Kornbluth. Ad man Mitch Courtenay is at the top of his game, and has been given the plum assignment of managing the Venus contract - promoting the new colonisation of Venus to ensure that his agency exclusively controls the spending of the would be colonists. In this imagined future, the world is effectively controlled by three giant advertising companies, the leaders of which are more powerful even than the US president. The ad men are rich, powerful and can have whatever they want, the consumers however are a downtrodden underclass...

This is a short novel, and in keeping with most science fiction of this era, it is desperately short on good characterisation - the characters are quite two dimensional almost just ciphers to move the plot along. The plot itself is also somewhat pedestrian, although with a twist at the end. I have to say however I really enjoyed this book. Although it is really dated, having been written over 60 years ago it has some very interesting technology and even the dated aspects of the novel hold a certain interest - in many ways the future the authors portrayed is already here. A lot of the scary stuff is a lot closer now than it was in the 1950's and even the stuff they got wrong casts light on the present. A great read.

The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison

In the far future, criminal intent, violence and deviousness has been bred out of the human race. Once in a while though someone slips through the genetic net. James Bolivar diGriz a.k.a. Slippery Jim is such a person. He is a master criminal and a brilliant disguise artist with a cunning mind, always staying several steps ahead of the law. Until...

This is the first in a science fiction comedy series, begun in the 1970s by the prolific science fiction author Harry Harrison. It was written, I think, as a spoof of the early space opera series by the likes of E E Doc Smith. I've never been a big fan of comic science fiction, or comic fiction generally, but it gives the author a lot of freedom to disregard the rules of science or sense and just have fun. I really enjoyed this, it was a great fun read. Incidentally, rather than reading this I listened to the audiobook from Brilliance Audio (on Audible.co.uk) and I thought it worked great as an audiobook and the narrator did a really good job.

That's it for now. I've just ordered several of the SF Masterworks so I'll be covering them in a later post. Before that, Hemingway and Tolstoy amongst others!

'40 Challenge update' - A Game, a Book and a Film

After a very busy week at work, I've made progress on all fronts this weekend, played a new game, as well as a film and have read most of a book. Here goes.

Game: Kingsburg

Gareth & Deborah came round on Friday night with a new game in the bag (actually quite an old game) - Kingsburg. This game is something of an oldie, celebrating its 10 year anniversary this year, and in the rankings it is a respectable 229 on Board Game Geek. It is a dice rolling, worker (dice) placement game. You roll three dice and then take turns placing the dice on one of the spaces of on the board (numbered 1 to 18) to gain resources, which you can then use to buy buildings that give abilities and are worth victory points. The theme of the game is that you are a noble sent by the King to govern frontier territories. The theme isn't overly important to the game, except for the end of each round when an invading army attacks and you need to have built up the strength to defend against it - otherwise it is bad news!

This is a really neat game which with four players took a couple of hours but with less chat would have been shorter. It's not too complicated - you can pick up the game quite quickly, but there's plenty of choices to think about (but not too many for analysis paralysis to set in). We played with the base game, but there's an expansion 'Kingsburg: To Forge a Realm' which we will play next time that really adds to the game.

Film: The Running Man

As we were flicking through the movies on Netflix, my wife exclaimed 'What do you mean you've never seen Running Man'. This was for her one of those classic childhood film memories, but one I'd obviously missed out on. Oh well never mind, I can make up for it now! Running man is an Arnie sci-fi action movie - Schwarzenegger is a wrongly accused prisoner forced to take part in a lethal game show. He has to run and try to get away while being chased and ultimately gruesomely killed by professional "stalkers", but in typical Arnie fashion he turns the tables and starts killing them instead. There's a nasty bad guy and a cute girl, as well as a freedom fighting resistance movement - it all adds up to easily one of the most enjoyable Arnie romps I've seen in a while.

Book: Lucky Man by Michael J Fox

Michael J Fox is one of my favourite actors, thanks mostly to his starring role in one of my favourite films of all time 'Back to the Future', and also one of my favourite 90s comedies 'Spin City'. I don't normally read celebrity autobiographies, but this one seemed a bit different, not least because of his being diagnosed with Early Onset Parkinson's disease in his late 20s. The first part of the book documents his early life, then the early years of his TV and film career. The mid part of the book is his description of the 'fun house years', with quite incisive observations about the strange and dangerous world of super stardom. The latter part of the book is about his decision to put his life back on a normal footing, and also about dealing with Parkinson's disease.

I almost never read celebrity autobiographies, with good reason I think, but I really enjoyed this book. It left me with the feeling, which I'd known already, that Michael J Fox is a genuinely nice guy, one of those rare all round good guys in Hollywood. It taught me a bit about Hollywood and the life of a film star, a bit more about Parkinson's disease, but a lot about life too. A great book, full of anecdotes, laugh out loud moments, but sad moments too, and it left me with a lot to think about.

Count as at 22 Jan:

Books 2/40
Games 3/40
Films 3/40

More next week.

The '40' Challenge in 2017

I know, I know, it is a bit late for new year's resolutions. This isn't one of those, it's a personal challenge for 2017. I'm calling it the 40 40 40 challenge. In 2017 I'm planning to do the following:

Read 40 new books
Play 40 new board games
Watch 40 new films

I wanted something challenging in a fun sort of way, not some really ambitious task that will keep me really busy and under pressure at home as well as at work. Why 40? Well I think it's quite a bit more than I managed last year - I think for instance I read about 25 books last year which - but I wanted it to be not too difficult to achieve. I thought about 50 or 52, the symbolic one a week, but to be honest particularly when it comes to books I didn't want it to be that tight. With the time I have, more than one book a week is quite a tall order, and I may want to read some longer books (War and Peace perhaps?). At 40 books in a year a few longer books are achievable, at 52 books a year I don't think so.

I love board gaming, and particularly playing new games but often don't play as many new games as I'd like, so thought I'd add board games to my challenge. Then there's films, I always want to watch more films, rather than just TV boxsets, and with the '12 movie nights of Christmas' present I got from my lovely wife, I'll already be watching one new film a month so part way there. I think films will be the easiest to achieve, but we'll see.

I'll be keeping a regular log on my blog of where I'm upto with the challenge, and posting reviews for many. Here's where I'm upto so far:

Books - 0/40. Currently reading a fairly chunky fantasy book by Joe Abercrombie. Really good, but delaying getting first book under my belt.

Games 2/40. Played a couple of Christmas presents so far - Imperial Settlers and Kanagawa. Both very enjoyable, will post reviews when I've played a couple more times.

Films 2/40 - I'm not counting Kinky Boots, which I watched most of on New Year's Eve 2016. I have watched though the Charlie Chaplin film 'The Champion' from 1915, and 'The Bounty' a 1984 film starring Mel Gibson, Anthony Hopkins and a helluva lot of other famous actors, about the mutiny on the HMS Bounty. Reviews to follow - probably.

Anyone else, want to join in the 40 challenge? 40 new meals, new beers, new music albums to listen to?

More soon.

Happy New Year - and Kinky Boots!

Last year I did quite a lot of blogging about travel and history, including a virtual tour round Europe. I exported this to my new blog Curiosity Cove. Since then this blog has been dormant, which seems a shame as it has been with me for quite a number of years now. So I'm going to revive it - all my history, travel, science and general non-fiction posts will still be over on Curiositycove.com, but on this blog I'm going to post reviews of board games, films, books etc.

My first film of the New Year was also the last film of 2016, as I started watching it last night. That was Kinky Boots. It is a 2005 film about a drag queen who comes to the help of an ailing shoe factory. Neither the name of the film nor the synopsis would have attracted me were it not for my wife wanting to watch it. I agreed, somewhat reluctantly but also knowing she has good taste in films! It was actually very good. After his father dies, Charlie becomes the owner of his family's shoe business, a business they have been running for many generations. Unfortunately, things are not looking good as they are undercut by cheap foreign imports. They are about to go out of business when a chance encounter with a drag queen leads to the idea of specialising in high quality stiletto boots for drag queens and men dressed as women!

The film isn't a comedy, but quite amusing in places. It is quite a touching story that has a definite ring of truth about it - not surprising as it is based on the true story of a Northampton firm that rescued their business and safeguarded jobs by specialising in shoes for transvestites. Not the best film ever, but certainly worth watching. I'd give it a solid 8/10.

Star Wars

After a late New Year's Day lunch and feeling a bit snoozy, it was time for an afternoon family film and this time it was my choice. I finally got my daughter to agree to watch a Star Wars film, after she's resisted for ages. I opted for Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace. Which film to start off with is a matter of much debate, but for a 7 year old girl, I thought that Episode One is a much more fun place to start, and she is less likely to get bored and wander off. Jar Jar Binks may be a much hated figure in the Star Wars universe, but for young children he is a source of great entertainment and amusement. Right now I'm thanking him for that!

So what do I think of Star Wars Episode One? I am going to risk being flamed, but I actually quite like it. If it didn't have the great expectations behind it, the first Star Wars film in a decade and a half, then I think it would have been lauded as a fairly decent film. It's definitely the weakest of all the Star Wars films but the weakest in a great film series can still be a good thing. The only thing that grates is the ending - all is lost and then Anakin accidentally blows up the generator, all the droids all fall over and the day is won (once Obi Wan destroys Darth Maul anyway). A bit too unbelievable really! Oh well. All in all everyone enjoyed.