The Invention of Angela Carter: A Biography
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Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 in The Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Financial Times,...
A Very Queer Family Indeed: Sex, Religion, and the Bensons in Victorian Britain
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"We can begin with a kiss, though this will not turn out to be a love story, at least not a love...
Around 1945: Literature, Citizenship, Rights
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Near the end of the Second World War, new ideas about citizenship, national identity, belonging, and...
The Pale King
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The Pale King is David Foster Wallace's final novel - a testament to his enduring brilliance The...
Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born: Ian Fleming's Jamaica
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The top 10 Sunday Times Bestseller. "Completely fascinating, authoritative and intriguing." (William...
The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology
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.G. Wodehouse was, by common consent, the most brilliant writer of English comedy in the 20th...
The Golden Bowl
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Henry James's highly charged study of adultery, jealousy and possession, The Golden Bowl is edited...
Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files: War Cry
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A war is raging between the vampire forces of the Red Court and the White Council - a war that the...
David McK (3791 KP) rated Thrawn Ascendancy Book I: Chaos Rising in Books
Jun 21, 2022
Mitth'raw'nuruodo.
The blue-skinned, red-eyed Imperial antagonist of Timothy Zahn's 'Heir to the Empire' series of Star Wars novels from the early 90's, and one of - if not [i]the[/i] breakout characters from that book.
Yet to make his appearance in live action (as an aside, I imagine maybe someone like Benedict Cumberbatch in the role), although he is one of the few characters to survive the 'great purge' when Disney bought out Lucasfilm and re-branded the old Expanded Universe as 'Legends', appearing in the later seasons of the animation 'Star Wars: Rebels'.
This is the first in a new trio of novels, with the opening text reading something along the lines of: 'A long time ago beside a galaxy far far away ...' which, in itself, helps set the scene. Beside a galaxy. So we're not in the realms of the Empire/The Rebellion here, or even in the realm of the Clone Wars, although we are - as the novel later makes clear when Thrawn encounters a key character from that period of time - in that particular era.
So, a prequel then? Maybe, but - I have to say- to me, this particular version of Thrawn just somehow *feels* different than that from the old EU. There's a certain Je Ne Sais Qua about that - I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's like meeting the identical twin brother of your best friend: they may look alike, sound alike and even dress alike but there's a certain indefinable *something* that's not quite right ...
Is it this version of Thrawn's political naivety? His seemingly not-quite-so-ruthless tactical genius? I don't know, but I will probably read more to see if/how the character evolves into that I am more familiar with.
Suswatibasu (1703 KP) rated As I Lay Dying in Books
Oct 25, 2017 (Updated Oct 25, 2017)
It begins with the death and burial of Addie Bundren, the matriarch of the family. Members of the family narrate the story of carting the coffin to Jefferson, Mississippi, to bury her among her relatives. And as the intense desires, fears and rivalries of the family are revealed in the vernacular of the Deep South, Faulkner presents a portrait of extraordinary power.
The narrative, told from each character's perspective, yet often about the same event, left the reader to interpret the underlying motive or conflict of feelings within the Bundren family. It is intriguing but requires careful reading of the dense prose.