O ants crawl my drunken arms
and they let Van Gogh sit in a cornfield
and take Life out of the world with a shotgun,
ants crawl my drunken arms
and they sent Rimbaud
to running guns and looking under rocks for gold,
O ants crawl my drunken arms,
they put Pound in a nuthouse
and made Crane jump into the sea in his pajamas,
ants, ants, crawl my drunken arms
as our schoolboys scream for Willie Mays
instead of Bach.
(from On Drinking by Charles Bukowski)
7½*/10. The complete review is here.
.
Initially the docent had refused to take pity on the man who claimed to have come all the way from America to pray at the Baptistry of San Giovanni in hopes of curing his terrible skin disease. Eventually, though, he had been inspired to become sympathetic, aided no doubt by an offer of five hundred dollars for five minutes alone in the baptistry ... combined with the growing fear that this contagious-looking person would stand there beside him for the next three hours until the building opened.
(from Inferno by Dan Brown)
7½*/10. The complete review is here.
.
.
The
drone nodded. “We were sent out as
cannon fodder. We turned out to be
better at staying alive than expected.
When they attached us to a praetorian regiment, we thought they wanted
us for our survival skills.”
“What did they want you for?”
“Breakfast.”
“So what happened?”
SVN/2187 shrugged. “There was an
unfortunate error. Our commanding
officer accidentally got shot by the entire platoon, and then happened to set
himself on fire and fell down a hole.
And then a bio-grenade rolled down there after him. For some reason, high command decided that we
were responsible.”
(from The Pincers of Death by Toby
Frost)
8*/10. The
complete review is here.
.
 |
“So,”
I said, eyeing him closely, “maybe it’s good there’s no such thing as time
travel.”
He
raised his eyebrows slightly.
“Or to qualify further, no such thing as public access time travel.”
“Exactly. Although the phrase
‘time travel’ is so sci-fi. We don’t do
that. Here at St. Mary’s we investigate major historical events in
contemporary time.”
(from Just One
Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor)
8½*/10. The complete review is here.
.
“I
didn’t drop acid before writing the lyrics, as many people later assumed. And the lyrics weren’t about an acid
trip. I may have smoked a joint that
night, but that was it. Since birth,
I’ve had achromatopsia – complete color blindness. If I had dropped acid, I would have been
hallucinating in vivid black-and-white.
I doubt that would have helped me or the song much. (John Kay, regarding “Magic Carpet Ride”)
(from Anatomy of a
Song by Marc Myers)
8½*/10. The complete review is here.
.
“I’ve left my husband,” she said, “and it’s for real, and I’m never going back.”
“To him, or to New York?”
“Neither.”
“How come? Is he the mayor?”
“What?” She looked blank for a second, and then she laughed. “It’s all connected in my mind,” she said. “It’s a journey into independence. Or does that sound stupid?”
“No, I can see that,” he said.
“If you’re making a big move, you want to make a move.”
“Right,” she said. “If I’m leaving, I’m leaving.”
“Sure,” he agreed. “If you’re throwing out the bath water, you might as well throw out the baby.”
She frowned at him. “Somehow that
doesn’t sound the same.”
(from Dancing
Aztecs by Donald E. Westlake)
9½*/10.
The complete review is here.
.
“It’s
not fair, not fair.”
“Your world is always fair.” I
didn’t make it a question, and she just straightened and looked at me without
speaking. I don’t think she would have
or could have answered it anyway.
“There’s no fairness to worlds.
Fairness is a thing created by men.
It doesn’t exist. It isn’t the
same in different cities, or among different people. How can fairness be the same thing in two
different worlds? In your world you were
a scholar, in this one you’re nothing.
In this world I’m a warrior, but if I went to yours, I might be a
beggar.”
(from Warrior of
the Altaii by Robert Jordan)
8*/10. The
complete review is here.
.
“What
happened?” he asked.
“You were in a fugue state,” Josephine said.
“What did I do?” Gary asked.
“Nothing,” Josephine said.
“You made it really cold in here,” Alice interjected.
“That is exactly why it was necessary to sever the link between you and Gary,” Morgan said to Josephine. “There’s no predicting what can happen when you have a splintered subconscious.”
“You certainly know how to toss
around buzz words and psychobabble,” Alice said.
(from Grumpy Old Wizards by John O’Riley)
4*/10. The
complete review is here.
.
“Gentlemen,
I am going to tell you about the OSS … the most fantastic damned organization
in all our armed forces. Its people do
incredible things. They seduce German
spies, they parachute into Sicily one day and two days later they’re dancing on
the St. Regis roof. They dynamite
aqueducts, urinate in Luftwaffe gas tanks, and play games with IG Farben and
Krupp, but” – throwing up his hands – “90 per cent of this has not a g**d***ed thing to do with the war.”
(from The Secret
War by Max Hastings)
9*/10. The
complete review is here.
.
“So
you dance now, Gully?”
“I
dance, speak four languages miserably, study science and philosophy, write
pitiful poetry, blow myself up with idiotic experiments, fence like a fool, box
like a buffoon...In short, I’m the notorious Fourmyle of Ceres.”
“No longer Gully Foyle.”
“Only to you, dear, and whoever you’ve told.”.
(from The Stars My
Destintion by Alfred Bester)
8*/10. The
complete review is here.
.
