Well, I've really been striking out this week.

I was traveling for a few days, so I figured a hotel room would be a good place to make some progress on Coyote Horizon, which I've been trying to start for a while now. Sadly, Coyote Horizon is even more bland and listless than its three predecessors, almost entirely populated with unconvincing characters I can never quite get interested in. I made it about eighty pages and then gave up.

But just across the street was a mall parking lot, and at the other end was a Barnes & Noble, and I had the notion I could find a copy of Sabriel, as recently recommended here. It sounded like just the thing for a couple nights of limited social opportunity--but alas, the store had none in stock, so I ended up slogging through a little more Coyote Horizon out of desperation. (Urf.)

Fortunately, when I came home there was a box waiting for me, featuring the long-awaited Protector by C.J. Cherryh, the fourteenth (!) in her Foreigner series. The intricate political machinations of a nonhuman culture, with a no-longer-naive human translator at the center of it all. Not much really new here, not conceptually, but that's hardly the point: it's a warm bubble bath for the mind, fizzy and fun, and if you've been with the characters through all the series so far, there are certainly some zingers in the first couple of chapters. Even though the situations aren't really that different (I'm expecting a bus and a gunfight at some point) the characters themselves, both human and atevi, have changed and grown by subtle brushstrokes, and they can still surprise you. C.J. is having fun with this, and it really shows in the writing.

And, new audiobook: A Rage for Glory, a well-written biography of Stephen Decatur, a perfect lagniappe after having finished the Patrick O'Brian novels. Apart from Decatur's exploits off Tripoli, the book explores the Chesapeake-Leopard affair and the long run-up to the War of 1812, showcasing the "superfrigates" that defined the early American navy--as well as the hair-trigger notions of personal and national honor which defined the early naval officers.



Originally Posted by Thiel
I've started on Post Captain, the second book in the Aubrey and Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian and I have to say it's a much better read than the first one.
H.M.S. Surprise is better yet, and the books become more polished and enjoyable from there.

Originally Posted by SaintRidley
Tolkien's Beowulf got dropped off at my door today. About a third of the way through the translation, looking forward to the commentary.

I'm about halfway through the translation, going to read through the commentary and other materials and probably write up a solid annotation for my personal reference.
Thank you. I have GOT to read this.

And you know, if you'd be willing to share that annotation....

Originally Posted by warty goblin
I'm also having trouble reconciling a desire for Christopher Tolkien to take greater ownership of something, and considering his work a cynical cash grab. There's something a bit odd there, considering how entirely respectful and meticulous his treatment of his father's legacy seems to be.
Yes indeed.

In The Anglo-Saxon World, the audiocourse I finished recently, Michael Drout makes the point--as he has elsewhere--that Tolkien's work on Beowulf was pivotal for twentieth-century Anglo-Saxon scholarship, and that even if Tolkien had never written a word in Middle-Earth, his Beowulf would still earn him a place in the literary firmament.

Now, Michael Drout is both a professor of Anglo-Saxon and a huge Tolkien fan, but I don't think that lessens his critical judgement where Tolkien as a scholar is concerned. The man was incredible. His professional achievements were remarkable, apart from his success as a popular author, and one hardly has to resort to posthumous padding to explain his meticulous and prolific scholarship.