Everything Gene Wolfe wrote was weird.
I mean this in the best possible way. His worlds were expansive and strange. He had a gift for understanding how the man in the street felt and thoughts about the weirdness in his world. His passing means that something great has gone from sci-fi, though we will have his books always.
Continue reading “In Memoriam: Gene Wolfe”I’m actually not one for historical novels much, though I love history and I especially love Roman history. However, Roman historical novels tend to…over-modernize. For a period of which we have extensive but hardly compete records, many authors decide to be too anachronistic in any number of ways. Sometimes it’s as bad as having the main character be an anti-slavery crusader, which is so historically absurd that you might as well include airplanes, sometimes it’s so subtle as just the wrong words or tone (garnered from some badly, badly taught history classes). Then there’s the “he-he sex” genre that takes on many different skins.
The Marcus Corvinus series by David Wishart has none of these problems. They are not only my favorite Roman historical novels, but they are my favorite mysteries and frequent comfort reads. I can’t recommend these books enough.
Heart of Darkness is a frame tale, a novel where a story is told within another story. It may actually be several frame tales in one, but we’ll get there when we get there.
We begin by joining the author’s company on a cruise along the mouth of the Thames, where they watch the sunset in serene brilliance- that is not without an ominous air.
There are many things to note about this opening scene.
First of all, aren’t those just beautiful covers? Lovely artwork.
The Magic in Ithkar books hit a certain sort of sweet spot for me. The setting pulls off something you rarely see anymore: coexistence of magic and technology. Well, really the muddling of the two, as the old saw of “any sufficiently developed technology is indistinguishable from magic” seems to be heavily in play.
