Title : Ruled Britannia (2003; 560 pages)
Author : Harry Turtledove
Genre : Alternate History; (Drama)
Rating : B
This Week I Read...It's 1597. England seethes under a long Spanish occupation, following the success of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
Queen Elizabeth is in the Tower of London. The state religion is once again Roman Catholic. The Inquisition is rooting out all Protestant die-hards and other heretics.
Will Shakespeare couldn't care less. All he wants to do is write and stage plays, and get paid for them. But karmic forces are in motion. The English insurgents hire him to write a nationalistic play
(Boudicca), while the Spanish oppressors hire him to write a eulogistic drama to memorialize their dying monarch
(Philip V). The tension mounts as Will reluctantly finds himself forced to play both ends against the middle, but becoming unexpectedly wealthy as he does.
What's To Like...Shakespearophiles will love this book.
Turtledove cribs freely from various plays of the the Bard himself, as well as some bits of
Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine. The result is a fine piece of drama that will appeal to even those of us who weren't thrilled about having to read one of Shakespeare's plays
every cotton-pickin' year in High School.
The author serves up a delightful cast of characters. There's the witty and punning
Wil Kemp who will keep you groaning & chuckling. His counterfoil is the bombastic fellow-actor
Richard Burbage. There's the Mitonesque detective
Constable Strawberry, who can take a simple statement and embellish until not even the Queen herself can make out what he just said. And the lovable-but-lazy manservant
Diego, employed by the womanizing Spanish soldier and wannabee-writer,
Lope de Vega. And finally, at center-stage throughout, we have the
but-I-never-wanted-to-be-a-hero Will Shakespeare.
What's Not To Like...Did I mention it's a drama? Therefore, don't expect much action. The book starts promisingly, with a pleasant public burning-at-the-stake, but that's pretty much it for blood-spilling until around page 500.
(Yawns)Turtledove takes great pains to immerse you in 1590's England. But that includes that dreadful renaissance English that made reading The
Merchant of Venice such a royal PITA. You will find yourself getting tired of being repeatedly subjected to words like
fain,
liefer,
gramercy,
certes, '
swounds,
bethinks,
belikes, and a whole slew of other verbs prefixed by that annoying "
be-". Forsooth, it besucks.
Finally, if you're English and Protestant, you will probably find this to be an uplifting tale. But if you're Spanish and Catholic, you may take umbrage at the stereotyping of all the occupiers as being either stupid or evil.
To Be Free, or Not To Be Free...Plotwise, the story ambles to a predictable conclusion. The oppressors are ousted, the Queen is freed, and like
Robert Asprin's Skeeve, Turtledove's Shakespeare somehow bumbles his way into becoming a hero.
Yet there is a subtle undertone to the story. In the end, as Shakespeare wanders through London observing the joyous celebrations of long-awaited liberty, he also notes that the English citizenry are treating the unfortunate remaining Spanish
(and anyone perceived - justly or unjustly - as being a collaborator) with just as much brutality as the Spanish had doled out for nine years. Even the likable Diego, who has never done any harm to the English, and who only wants to sleep his way through life, ends up dead-as-a-doornail, a casualty in the name of Freedom.
But I digress. As a drama,
Ruled Britannia rates an
"A". As an action novel
(hey, Harry! You at least cooda included the Armada's successful campaign against England in the story), it only rates a
"C". That averages out to a
"B", so that's what we'll give it.
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Well, it's time to wrap up our little exposé regarding the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Earlier posts described their opposition to the "Intelligent Design" farce, as well as their whimsical "Global Warming vs. Number of Pirates" quasi-scientific data.
...here's a fish-&-chips joint that opened about a year ago, about a mile from our house. Hmmm. Does that logo look familiar?!
Imagine that. Stodgy old Mesa has a business that subtly advertises the CotFSM. I'm sure there's a story here somewhere (the founder of the CotFSM did reside for a while in Arizona a couple years ago), but I doubt that any of the employees would know it.
So I won't ask anybody there if they worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster - I'm sure I'd get a deer-in-the-headlights look. But if you're ever in the neighborhood, you'll find these folks on Lindsey, just north of University.
Artist : Hugh Cornwell
Turkey's string of miracle finishes came to an end yesterday, as this time it was Germany who scored in the last minutes of the game to win 3-2. Once again, Turkey had more substitutes than first-stringers on the field, so things bode well for the Turks in the World Cup championships to be played in South Africa in 2010.
Outland, née Bloom County. One of the five best newspaper comics ever. The others being Dilbert, Doonesbury, Non Sequitur, and Pogo. Click on the cartoon for a bigger image. 
From a cool website that a friend turned me on to : www.xkcd.com We'll post a few more cartoons from this site in the coming weeks.
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Movie : The Golden Compass (Theaters - 2007; DVD - 2008)
It was another game and another miracle for Turkey in the European Championship quarterfinals. With 7 of their 11 starters out due to injury or red-card suspensions, no one gave them a chance against Croatia.
TRIVIA ANSWER : Turkey has led all of 9 minutes in their 4 games (390+ minutes total). They won 3 of those games.
It's the longest day of the year & the beginning of summer; so we'll post this picture (that I think is) of the moon & sun over the North Pole.
Find the "Invisible Man". Probably best to view this one full-sized, and then magnify it even more.
Artist : The Kingston Trio
Courtesy of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, here's conclusive proof that there's a link between the number of Pirates in the world and Global Warming.
It's too bad soccer ("football" to most of the world) isn't more popular in the US, cuz there was a GREAT game today (shown on ESPN2) between Turkey and the Czech Republic in the European Championship ("Euro 2008"). After 75 minutes in a win-or-go-home game, the Turks found themselves outplayed, and losing 0-2. In the final 15 minutes, they scored 3 goals to advance to the knock-out round to play Croatia.
Title : Relic (1995, 474 pages)
Prickly City is a local cartoon strip. It is political enough to where it appears on the Editorial Page, not on the Comics page. It definitely is a cut below strips like Doonesbury, but it has its moments. What makes it unique is that it seems to take as many jabs at the Republicans as it does at the Democrats. Needless to say, I find the former more far amusing than the latter. 
Congratulations to the Arizona State University Women's Softball team, which sailed through the NCAA tournament undefeated, then trounced Texas A&M 3-0 and 11-0 in the best-of-three finals. The whole batting order was strong, but there's no doubt that the key was our pitcher, Katie Burkhart. Alas, she's a senior, so there is some rebuilding to do. This was the first-ever champtionship for ASU in softball. And oh yeah, 11-0 is the largest margin-of-victory ever in the championship game. 
This is Poochie, our latest foster-dog. Actually, he's a stray that Liz has brought home, and he bears an uncanny resemblance to Red, the last dog she came home with. You can read about Red here.
... that the USA lifted its long-standing ban of Absinthe sometime in 2007?
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