Weregopher from the Black Lagoon

 Some recent reads:

'Black Hearts in Battersea' by Joan Aiken  4/5

This is a cheerful romp of a book!

Set in the fictitious reign of James III, it has pretty much everything a young reader could wish for (my 11 year old granddaughter loved it!): adventure, kidnapping, hot air balloons, shipwreck, an eccentric Duke, an attempt to murder the king, lots of fun characters and the lost heir to a Dukedom.

Fast paced and laced with humorous situations.

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We have a deal going on. I read a book my granddaughter recommends and she reads one I rec.  So I've just finished Black Hearts in Battersea, and she enjoyed Heinlen's 'Rolling Stones'.

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Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel  2/5

I really wanted to like this, as I enjoyed the TV series.

Unfortunately, I dislike most books written in the first person, and most books written in the present tense  - this book is both.

I couldn't get though many pages before giving up.

Hopefully, most other readers won't find this an issue, but for me personally, I can only give it two stars.

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Bookshops and Bonedust - Travis Baldree 3/5

This one disappointed me.

Surely a writer as popular as Travis Baldree can get decent beta-readers/editors who actually have some decent general knowledge?

Fantasy requires 'suspension of disbelief'.  I can believe in a lesbian, dwarf baker falling for an orc twice her size.  I can happily buy an evil necromancer, an ailing bookshop, etc.

But I cannot buy a character being stabbed twice rapidly in her leg by a pike.  I'm a re-enactor.  A pike is an 18ft long weapon, cumbersome, and used as part of a pike block.

If you want to stab someone close up, use a spear!

Happened again right at the end.  A warrior sat rosining his bowstring.

Even my 11-year-old granddaughter spotted what was wrong with that...

You rosin a violin bow.  (It makes the horsehair sticker so it has more friction with the violin strings)

Rosining an archer's bowstring (which is definitely not made of horsehair) is complete nonsense.

Without those gaffes, I'd probably have given it a rating of 4, although there was a geological error as well...

It may sound nit-picky, but if I'm absorbed in a story, something that is clearly wrong jerks me out of my belief in that story.

 I've not posted in the last couple of weeks, as my bike skidded on a patch of hard frost and I took  a nasty tumble - and then went down with flu not long after.

I'm gradually getting back to normal, but still fairly ouchy in places...

However, the good news is that both my kids now have jobs. And both in the fields that they wanted to work in.  It's been a while - unemployment really sucks.

Henry's now working as a 'requirements manager', (think that was the title) which basically means he's working on the part of a project that really appealed to him - not coding, but working on what the code actually needs to do. eg.  One that came up during is interview - what are the requirements for a traffic control system?

You need to think about negative requirements, not just positive ones. He, correctly, came up with "It should not send speeding tickets to emergency serviced vehicles."

Took nine months out of work after being made redundant, and several training courses that he paid for himself, but he's there now.

Lindsey just had a successful interview with a specialised haulage company doing scheduling.  Scheduling is her best job skill, but vacancies don't come up that often.  She can do a limited amount of driving work - did some before Christmas, but that was a temporary job - too many tight corners trigger vertigo attacks.

I'm impressed that she managed to haggle her hours for this new job to allow her to pick up Oswin from school!  Don't yet know if it's work from home or office. 

Henry's new job is hybrid, which allows him and his wife to plan their respective days at home to allow for Theo (now one year old) emergencies/delivering to nursery/etc.

It's good that both kids live close to us and to each other.  We normally take Theo on Fridays, but last week, we were still too wiped from the flu.  Lindsey went round and took Theo for the morning, and then we took him for the afternoon (four hours we could manage, but not all day).

Looking back, I do not know how I managed with two young children and no family within a hundred miles....

And I feel sorry for how much their grandparents missed out on the joy (and occasional panic,etc.) of having the young members of the family around regularly.  Being involved in Theo and Oswin's lives so closely is a gift beyond price.