Hello, Kay;

10 Dec 04 17:20, Kay Shapero wrote to Robert Bull:

 KS> Oh the larger screen is useful regardless of the orientation you set
 KS> it to.  It still provides a lot more text per page.  And you can
 KS> change the font size, either directly in the file or using the
"zoom"
 KS> function which has three settings - small, medium (the default case)
 KS> and large.

Sounds good; perhaps I should look at prices again...  they're still pretty 
expensive if you're not convinced.  A copy of VANITY FAIR in the local 
library weighs in at nearly 900 pages, which seems an awesome amount of text 
to read on a small screen.  Or small book-print, come to that.

BTW, what do you use to maintain your Web site?  A proper knowledge of HTML 
and a text editor, or some kind of HTML editor that supposedly reduces the 
hard work?

 KS> I doubt you'll find a book written after Vietnam involving the
 KS> military that won't reflect that experience.  In this case the
 KS> problems aren't psychological so much as social (civilians being
 KS> afraid of returning soldiers who of necessity still have some of the
 KS> modifications to speed and strength, and even some weaponry) and
 KS> physiological damage (early onset of arthritis and the like) caused by

That's a fairly new slant on things, though I understand that former 
members of the elite British Army special forces unit the SAS are strictly 
banned from getting together with other former members, as they would be a 
very serious problem if they went to the bad.

 KS> some of the implants.  And of course inevitably those who have "seen
 KS> the elephant" are changed by the experience in ways generally not
 KS> understood by those who haven't.

"seen the elephant???"

 KS> CBIP: _Paladins_ by Joel Rosenberg.  Almost didn't read this one (it
 KS> came in a bundle with several other books I did want), but whatever it
 KS> was that bugged me about his early works seems to have worn off.  It's
 KS> set in an alternate version of Earth where Pendragons in the line of
 KS> Mordred rule England, in the equivalent of our Age of Sail, and Our

Hmmm.  Does that mean that Mordred's descendants are somehow tainted, 
congenitally dishonourable, or whatever?  Mordred never had a good press...

 KS> occasional in-joke, but on the whole doesn't use them to excess.  I'm
 KS> about 3/4 of the way through.

Be interesting to hear how it works out.

     I recently read KING'S DRAGON, first volume of "Crown of Stars" by 
Kate Elliott.  This followed a recommendation for it by someone reviewing 
Robin Hobb's work, including the "Golden Fool" trilogy.  This actually was 
suspect, given that Bob Lawrence and I both thought "Golden Fool" was 
potboiler territory.  Elliot's book didn't start very promisingly, with a 
few weird types in another dimension looking into ours, and young Alain 
wanting to avoid being sent to the cloister (cf. Hobb's better inversion, 
where Wintrow wants to stay in the cloister and is hauled out against his 
will).
     I'd got bored with pseudo-mediaeval Northern Europe-type milieus for 
fantasies.  But Elliott surprised me by doing much of it rather well; she 
didn't simply take a superficial reading of it as a given, but embraced it 
lock, stock, and barrel, including the all-pervasiveness of the church, 
quarrels over religious doctrine, obsessive dynastic squabbling, and the 
common fate of children having their lives appointed for them by their 
forebears with no say of their own whatsoever.  Yet this isn't quite our 
world, and the church isn't the Christian church, even if it does borrow 
all the trappings.  It's equal-opportunity, for one thing; most of the 
senior clerics are women.
     Another annoyance I'd had (particularly in Barbara Hambly's work) was 
the relationship between magic and the church, in worlds where both exist.  
In this one, Elliott addresses the question fairly well.  I've requested 
Vol.2 from the library, though I wasn't quite so pleased to find that 
"Crown of Stars" is a -double- trilogy  :-/

     Elliott still didn't answer another puzzle.  Why are so many American 
fantasy authors, all of them presumably firm believers in democracy, 
apparently so obsessed by hereditary kingship?  Why should that always be 
the best way to rule fantasyland?  Here we have at least some British 
authors doing the opposite, like China Mieville's city of New Crobuzon run 
by a corrupt oligarchy in cahoots with its criminal underworld.

     Regards,

              Robert.

--- GoldED 3.00.Beta2+