Monday morsel – The Vorkosigan Companion

Monday is here, and instead of moping about getting up early I ask you to enjoy this little morsel from a book.

This week the morsel is from a non-fiction book, It’s not something I do much, but I’m a great Bujold fan and is having a great time reading The Vorkosigan Companion in between reading fiction. I’m reading it on my Kindle as Baen was nice enough to include a cd-rom with e-editions (in several different formats) of all the books in the Vorkosigan saga when you bought  the hard cover edition of the latest Vorkosigan book, “Cryoburn“. Thank you!

“Shards should have been classified as a “gateway drug”. Once I read the story of Captain Cordelia Naismith and Aral Vorkosigan, the Butcher of Komarr, I was doomed. Since then, I’ve read and reread every novel Lois McMaster Bujold has ever written. (And checking facts for this essay kept hooking me into still more rereading!)
— Mary Jo Putney in the essay “Aspects of the Vorkosiverse : Romance in the Vorkosivers” —

I totally agree. If you’re going to read any books by Lois McMaster Bujold you should start with “Shards of Honor“.

Monday morsel – One Good Turn

This Monday my Monday morsel comes from the crime novel One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson. I presented the beginning of it on Friday, but I’ve got a bit further since then 🙂

I’m reading it right now, and the next sentence to read is:

Louise was running. Louise hated running but it was marginally preferable to going to the gym. The gym involved regular commitment and, outwith her job, she was crap at regular commitment. (p.148)

Monday morsel – The Maze Runner

Det er Monday! It’s about time to get my Monday morsel online.

The morsel today comes from The Maze Runner by James Dashner. It’s the first of a series of at least 3 books. I’m about halfway through, and my impression so far is that it’s suspenseful and fairly good.

On he ran, left and right, straight, on and on. By the time he’d crossed the threshold into the Glade, the Doors were only minutes from closing for the night. Exhausted, he headed straight for the Deadheads, went deep into the forest until he reached the spot where the trees crowded against the south-west corner. More than anything, he wanted to be alone. (s.184)

Monday Morsel – Crossfire

The morsel this Monday comes from the novel Crossfire by Dick & Felix Francis. Dick Francis has written a string of crime novels from the English steeplechasing milieu and this is the last of theese novels as he died in 2010.

“Please don’t be annoyed with me,” I said in my most calming way. “I’m here to help you.”
Her shoulders drooped and she slumped onto a chair at the kitchen table.
“I’m tired,” she said. “I don’t fell I can carry on.”
“What, with the training?”
“With life,” she said.
(p.88)

So far it’s fast paced and exciting, what you’d expect from a Dick Francis novel.

Monday Morsel – An Elegy for Easterly

This Monday the morsel comes from the short story collection An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah.

Danai and I decided that when we grew up, we would work for MuIndia rather than the white madam. We spoke of him in one breath as MuIndia waMainin‘Juliana, and talked of him as intimately as we did the members of our very large family, wondering at the peculiar singularity of his ways, his refusal to advance salaries even when there was illness, his habit of picking his nose when he thought that no one was looking, the leftover Zambia cloth and bent out of shape Kango plates and cups with missing handles that he gave Juliana and his other assistant, Timothy, as Christmas bonuses, the yellow plastic comb that he tucked behind his ear and next to his hair, and his house in Belvedere, which we pronounced Bharabhadiya.”  (p. 177)

Monday morsel

This weeks morsel is from the beginning of the short story  The Tenth Muse by Tad Williams in the short story collection The New Space Opera 2:

When I first got to know Balcescu, I didn’t like him much. A snob, that’s what I thought he was, an way too stuck on himself. I was right, too. One of the things that drove me crazy is that he talked like George Sanders, all upper-crust, but I didn’t believe for a moment he actually knew who George Sanders was. Old Earth movies wouldn’t have been high-brow enough for him.

He also loved the sound of his own voice, whether the person he was talking to had time to listen or not.

“There you are, Mr. Jatt,” he said one day, stopping me as I was crossing the observation deck. “I’ve been looking for you. I have a question.”

Monday morsel – Rivers of London

Downbelow Station, last week’s morsel, got ignored this week as my friend Thomas pushed Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch into my hands. (For some odd reason it’s called “Midnight Riot” in the US.) I’m almost finished and I’m having a really good time with it.

And now, the morsel:

“Is that true?” asked Lesley?
“Which bit?” I asked.
“Spells, food, obligations, wizards – the bailiff,” said Lesley. “For God’s sake, Peter, that’s false imprisonment at the very least.”
“Some of it’s true,” I said. “I don’t know how much, I think becoming a wizard is about discovering what’s real and what isn’t.”
“Is her mum really the goddess of the Thames?”
“She thinks she is, and I’ve met her and I’m beginning to think she might be,” I said. “She’s got real power, so I’m going to treat her daughter as the real thing until I find out different.”