Archive for March, 2010

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Review: Souless by Gail Carriger

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Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she’s a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Things go from bad to worse when Alexia accidentally kills the vampire and, appalling, Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate. With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London’s high society? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

Does This Make My Butt Look Victorian?

At CondorCon this year the theme was steampunk. Accordingly, there were several panels on Victorian dress, goggle construction, and how to scavenge for suitable suitings, and other items of general steampunkery.

Graphic Novel Buys 03/27/10

Just got back from ComicKaze, where I showed admirable restrained for budgetary reasons. It was a near thing, though. And now I’ve got an even BIGGER list of comics I WILL be buying next time I go.

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Whimsically illustrated, this bite-sized bestiary is the definitive guide to the kosherness of imaginary animals. Once and for all, burning questions passed down through the ages have been answered: Is a vegetable-lamb a vegetable or a lamb? Does licking the Pope make you tryf? What exactly is pollo maligno? Is roasted Sasquatch stringy?

Also featured are Joseph Nig, internationally bestselling author of How to Raise and Keep a Dragon and Duff Goldman, star of the Food Network reality show Ace of Cakes, who reveals how to properly prepare these fantastical beasts.

This irreverent kashrut is a must for those seeking to broaden their imaginary culinary experiences guilt-free.

Filigree detail on Seven-ringed collar
Source:Historiska Museet

How would you like to spend all day wandering through a room filled with treasures made of gold; rings, coins, cups, brooches, chains, collars, buckles, torques, etc?

Dude, is it ever cool.

Especially if the room in question is the Gold Room exhibit at the Historiska Museet (The Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm, Sweden). I went here in ’96 when I was an impressionable teenager and did it ever make an impression on me. I would go back to Stockholm in a heartbeat just to visit the Historiska Museet and the Gold Room again.

Tiny gold figure plaques
Source:Historiska Museet

I was poking around the internet a few weeks ago, just casually looking for good Viking sites and old Norse recipes and was suddenly reminded of the hours I spent gazing at all that gold so long ago. Don’t ask how my brain made the leap from boiling apple leaves to a golden hoard. Maybe the thought of taking a gander at the Historika’s site was beginning to percolate just then.

What was so nifty about the Gold Room, I mean besides the cases filled with the good stuff, is that the room itself had this great, serene Asian-style setting. The room is round and the center, at that time, was sort of inset and had benches for sitting around a little fountain, while the exhibit itself formed a sort of raised ring around this indoor courtyard. I just really enjoyed the contrast of looking at all these bright treasures from more ancient days while strolling round a dark, modern room. It was so awesome.

My memory says there was a kind of soft Japanesy sort of music quietly playing near the ceiling to the lazy accompaniment of the little fountain.

I was a bit disappointed to see from their website that the Historiska’s changed the architecture of the Gold Room; it’s still round but it’s paved with yellow flagstone and brightly lit with the cases set into the walls instead of being freestanding so each side houses a different display. Just proves once again that you can never go home again.

My favorite case in the ever-so-cool Gold Room housed just one little artifact. It wasn’t an intricately filigreed collar. It wasn’t a reliquary cup. It wasn’t the typical delicately wrought work of goldsmithing mastery that the other cases contained. It was a bent, rectangle-ish loop of scrunched gold. What I loved wasn’t so much the object itself but it’s story. Because the beat up little bit of metal was a prehistoric gold neck ring. A farm family had found it in their field and it was doing service as their gate latch. Some historians came by asking for directions to some nearby site and there was this priceless golden treasure holding the gate closed. I found it hilarious, but then I’m a farmer’s granddaughter. (at least, that’s the version I remember)

Screen shot of the Gold Room video showing roman coins and Norse coinage rings

My second favorite display in the Gold Room was a case with treasures from the Viking Age. It was almost half-filled with old Roman silver and gold coins and little rings and armlets. The placard said, if I’m recalling it correctly, that the Vikings and Norse traders (yes, there IS a difference) liked to get paid in coin by the Romans because coins were easy to carry and sell back home.

They preferred to be paid in silver because it was actually more valuable in Sweden because it wasn’t as common. I found it really amusing that all of these coins were being used as smelting stock, essentially, instead of having any value as Roman money. I’m sure the Romans would have had a conniption if they realized.

You can see a good video about this exhibit and ogle some of it’s treasures here. Statistics about the treasures housed in the Gold Room and little segments highlighting a few of their number one artifacts (one of which turns out to be my favorite exhibit mentioned above).

The video has English subtitles, so no worries if you don’t speak Swedish.

Review: The Tomb by Defilippis, Mitten & Weir

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In 1922, Lord Earl Carnarvon financed the Egyptian expedition that unearthed King Tut’s tomb. While the fact that the dig gained a reputation for being “cursed” is well known, Mathias Fowler slipped away into anonymity. Fowler, an American on the team, had grown obsessed with the Ancient Egyptians and when he returned to the States it was with several stolen artifacts in tow. Fowler had become so obsessed that when he died, he killed all of his household staff and had them buried in his mansion with him – a modern day Pharaoh’s Tomb.

Almost 60 years after Fowler’s death, Jessica Parrish, archeologist and would-be-Indiana Jones, has been hired to assemble and lead a team into the house to take back the missing pieces and disable the booby traps that have already cost one unfortunate group their lives. Can Parrish and her comrades navigate the elaborate deathtraps with their persons intact or will the curse of Tut’s tomb just add to its mounting body count?

What I’m Reading: January & February 2010

I love books. In case you hadn’t had a clue about that yet. Here’s what I’m reading, have read, and plant to read as of March 18, 2010.

Serieses? Seriei? Are You Serious?

So, the word ‘series’ is a plural; by definition it is multiple things that are part of an ordered grouping. Like how ‘media’ is actually a plural for ‘medium’ (when talking about art or communication).

If you want to talk about more than one series, how do you modify the word when it’s already a plural? more »

Review: What in the Word by Charles Harrington Elster

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Are you so sure about “assure,” “ensure,” and “insure”? Can you determine whether a knob of butter is equivalent to a lump or a pat or a scosh? Can you say which word in the English language has the most definitions, or who put the H in Jesus H. Christ?

If you can’t, be assured that Charles Harrington Elster, author of several well-loved works on language, can-and does in his latest book, a delightfully designed compendium of the most common, interesting, and entertaining conundrums in our language. Drawing upon esoteric sources and his own inimitable expertise, Elster uses a lively question-and-answer format to cover a variety of topics-word and phrase origins, slang, style, usage, punctuation, and pronunciation. Every chapter features original brainteasers, challenging puzzles, and a trove of literary trivia.

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Janet dreams of a quiet, drama-free college life with her best friend, Paul. Unfortunately, Paul’s dead, and Janet’s only living friends are first-class busybodies Hanging out with a ghost might seem exciting, but Janet and her ghost-pal Paul make hermits look social.

When Janet’s meddling friend Freya forces her out on yet another blind date, Janet’s running for the hills…until romance blossoms. However, instead of love bringing the fledgling couple together, it’s all the things they have in common that keep them apart. Whether it’s ghosts of the past or ghosts of the present, will the young couple let their pasts haunt them forever, or will they find a way to heal their festering romance?