Sealion II

I am a big fan of sleep. Sleep is good for you, especially if you are a teenager. Why do we have high-schoolers go to school before elementary school kids, and not after? This makes no sense, physiologically speaking.

I'm pretty sure I've talked about this before, but it bears repeating: adults sleep roughly two hours a day less than they did one hundred years ago (nine hours vs. seven). That's absolutely crazy, and I think it's a major contributing factor to the general increase in mental illness, especially unipolar depression, we're seeing throughout the world. Cheap electric light is wonderful stuff, but it may have hidden costs...

So, a while back Richard Thompson (Guitar Hero and Folkie Songwriter Extraordinaire) was asked for his favorite pop songs of the millenius. He took the "millenium" bit seriously, and produced 1000 Years of Popular Music in response to the request.

The album is arranged in chronological order (I'm not quite sure it's perfect chronological order, but it's close), beginning with the oldest known non-religious song in English--Middle English, to be exact, dating from the 13th century or thereabouts: "Sumer is icumen in/Laude sing cucu!" It's a round; it's really cool.

Then we get a few more medieval-ish numbers, including one about Henry V and one in Italian; my favorite of these is "Remember O Thou Man", which I think is actually a hymn, but presumably it was a popular hymn. Then a section of 1800s era songs, ranging from "Blackleg Miner" to "Shenandoah" to "There is Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast", to cheer all of us fans of Gilbert and Sullivan. "Shenandoah" in particular is one of the high points of the album.

Then some jazzy numbers, including a couple with a female lead vocal (RT does the guitar throughout and most of the singing, but he has two very good female voices contributing throughout...not sure who they are, but a moment with Google will inform the curious), of which my favorite is "Java Jive".

And last, the Modern Pop, highlighted by Richard Thompson, baritone and all, covering "Oops! I Did It Again". (As he said in an interview, "Taken out of context it's really quite a good song.")

Now that...that's eclectic. Not only is it a hoot, but some of the songs are really beautiful.

9.5 out of 10 stars.

Sorry. I'll try to do better on the next one.

Today's books are the Temeraire novels, by Naomi Novik.

So...if you took Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels, and set them during the Napoleonic Wars, the result would look quite a bit like the Temeraire books. Ms. Novik does a pretty good job of getting the Napoleonic War-era English culture, as far as I am qualified to judge; the language and mores of the people aren't gratingly modern, and she does an O.K. Jane Austen impersonation. (Semi-random question: why are there never Napoleonic War novels written from the French point of view? Or are they all just written in French?)

But with DRAGONS!

Hooray dragons!

These dragons are physiologically ridiculous, of course, and psychologically even more ridiculous, considered from the "real-world" point of view. It's also jaw-dropping to think that the presence of huge dragons living and fighting alongside humans throughout humans would produce the same history as seen in our world. In a way this isn't a fair criticism, since it's a founding premise of her novel, not a consequence of her premises, but she's mentioned several alterations of history (China is a Great Power principally because of its great aerial/dragon strength, the Spanish failed to establish colonies in South America--the nature of the North American colonies hasn't really been explained), so she has considered it from this point going forward...

Anyway. That's the background premise. William Laurence, an English sea captain, captures a French frigate carrying an unusual and significant cargo--a dragon egg of an unknown and presumably extremely valuable type. The dragon egg is about to hatch; when this happens it will imprint on a person, to whom it will thereafter be psychologically bonded (told you it was like Pern). Being a dragon rider is...well, not the thing. They are notoriously bad-mannered vagrant libertines (by the standards of Georgian England) and not really company a gentleman deserving of the name would mix with, servants of the Crown though they be; but any dragon is valuable, and sacrifices must be made.

As it happens, the hatchling--of a type never seen before, and unusually intelligent--takes immediately to Captain Laurence, who finds himself bound to Temeraire (as he names his new charge), and the course of his life changed forever...


This falls into the "ripping yarn" category of book; exciting, engaging and competently written--no more, but no less. At times it has a little bit of a "travelogue" feel, as Narvik sends Laurence and Temeraire around the globe to display dragon-human society in different places, but the examination of dragon-human relations is one of the most interesting and deepest elements of the story; the comparison between dragon life and the slave trade is particularly important in this regard.

7 of 10 stars; those books are Temeraire, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, and Empire of Ivory, with Victory of Eagles to come next year.

The Great Roscivs--who wrote a whole post on the puzzle, very entertaining!

And C-Snail, who likewise reports.

The interpretation:

Oh, see, Billy, see 'em go,
Forty buses in a row.
Oh, no, Billy, them is trucks.
What is in 'em? Cows and ducks.