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Jul. 6th, 2009 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnny9fingersAs most folk who stumble upon this blog know I normally buy a couple of books a week, and read them and a few others, borrowed or begged from chums. Last week, while browsing the local Waterstones I chanced upon this, the unbelievably brilliantly titled 'Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition', by B. R. Burg. It is, as one may imagine, a pretty standard LBGT text-book, but apart from that particular ghetto, it's thesis seems quite sound. With a title like that I shall leave you all to buy it for yourselves, before embarking upon a discussion as to its merits or otherwise. You know you want to. I wondered if I'd term Burg's thesis as a 'semi-elective situationism' evolving to a specific micro-culture, but perhaps not.
I can't wait to 'accidentally' leave it on a coffee table when the in-laws come around. I haven't bothered to get the first, though.
Now, I'm as embarrassed about my heterosexuality as all proper-thinking mostly straight chaps ought to be; which is quite a lot, but not enough to keep me from appreciating women in general and The Wife in particular; in that nasty heterosexual fashion which so objectifies lasses on the basis of....pulchritude or some similar aesthetical value. I fear that Summer brings this on; and I wary of becoming a middle-aged chap who leers at women. If I ever catch myself turning creepy I swear it will be the bathtub and razorblade. There are some things not to be borne. However, this train of thought brings me to my pr0n novel....but I digress.
I also read the slightly unsatisfying 'House of Suns' by some chap called Alastair Reynolds. Which is not to say the book is without merit, just I fear I have been spoiled by Iain M Banks when it comes to hi-tech space opera. Bank's books are full of clever insights and asides. Somehow they seem loftier and deeper. Reynolds tells a story, and pretty well too: but I'm always reminded of the bands that came after Led Zeppelin, and ploughed the same furrow, only with less wit, music, and invention....or the myriad followers of Tolkien, none of whom had the command of language or ability to manipulate symbols enough to carve their narrative into the Mount Rushmore of the English-speaking-people's culture.
Never mind. Reynolds is a good Welsh lad, and I may just have hit on a novel that's not actually his best. The new Iain M Banks novel is out in September. It is not a 'Culture' novel, alas.
I can't wait to 'accidentally' leave it on a coffee table when the in-laws come around. I haven't bothered to get the first, though.
Now, I'm as embarrassed about my heterosexuality as all proper-thinking mostly straight chaps ought to be; which is quite a lot, but not enough to keep me from appreciating women in general and The Wife in particular; in that nasty heterosexual fashion which so objectifies lasses on the basis of....pulchritude or some similar aesthetical value. I fear that Summer brings this on; and I wary of becoming a middle-aged chap who leers at women. If I ever catch myself turning creepy I swear it will be the bathtub and razorblade. There are some things not to be borne. However, this train of thought brings me to my pr0n novel....but I digress.
I also read the slightly unsatisfying 'House of Suns' by some chap called Alastair Reynolds. Which is not to say the book is without merit, just I fear I have been spoiled by Iain M Banks when it comes to hi-tech space opera. Bank's books are full of clever insights and asides. Somehow they seem loftier and deeper. Reynolds tells a story, and pretty well too: but I'm always reminded of the bands that came after Led Zeppelin, and ploughed the same furrow, only with less wit, music, and invention....or the myriad followers of Tolkien, none of whom had the command of language or ability to manipulate symbols enough to carve their narrative into the Mount Rushmore of the English-speaking-people's culture.
Never mind. Reynolds is a good Welsh lad, and I may just have hit on a novel that's not actually his best. The new Iain M Banks novel is out in September. It is not a 'Culture' novel, alas.
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Date: 2009-07-12 04:32 pm (UTC)Now, I'm as embarrassed about my heterosexuality as all proper-thinking mostly straight chaps ought to be
This made me lol hardcore. :-D I also agree that becoming a creepy leering at women guy is worth the bathtub and razor blade. My dad is one of those and I hate it for many many reasons.