Arbie's Unoriginally Titled Book Blog

This isn't just an alien world - it's an alien universe! The speed of light in vacuo is frequency dependent. That isn't the case where we live!

Zeus wakes up, dictates the future course of the war, threatens anybody who dares to try to thwart him, sends his brother back to the ocean and gets Apollo to save Hector (again).

A sputtering start (two protagonists introduced and killed off inside 50p) gives way to a servicable, somewhat (absurdly) humourous 'friller that will at least keep the pages turning. Some of it is surprising, some of it predictable and the exposition could be handled better, but if you liked Redshirts or Fuzzt Nation you'll probably get along well enough with this. He's written better and worse.

Dreadful proof-reading; littered with errors.

Poseidon continues to inspire the Argives, meanwhile, back at the ranch on Mount Olympus, Hera plans to out-manouvre Zeus...

Ahh-hahahahahahahahaha - *huge intake of breath* - hahahahahahaha!

What if the Xenomorph was not an implacable killing machine but rather an average Joe alien with everyday problems? Find out from this book full of visual and verbal puns playing on the Alien film series.

Y'know, that Ansel Adams guy was a moderately talented photographer...

Agamemnon suggests taking ship and fleeing the war altogether. Odysseus immediately upbraids him for cowardice and points out that the idea is unworkable anyway, as the ships cannot be guarded and boarded at the same time.

A Mad World, My Masters, Sc.1.2: Master Shortrod Harebrain is easily fooled. The density of sexual innuendoes is approaching the threshold for colapse into a black hole...

The flanking manouvre Poseidon secretly inspired is working - when Hector finds out he heads over, meets his brother, complains of Paris' cowardice but is rebutted: the pair head into the thick of it.

Piranesi's work could be largely divided in to three catagories; views; imagined works; antiquarian records. For me, the imagined works were the most interesting and the works that are primarily about preserving a record of antiquities the least. Of course there is overlap. Title pages of various collections are imagined compositions, even if the contents are engravings of architectural diagrams. Views of ancient Roman remains act as antiquarian records even if the main objective was to sell souvenirs to rich Brits on the Grand Tour. But for me the pinacle is the Imagined Prisons that inspired the purchase of the book in the first place.

What gains here from completeness, one loses in scale. Most of the reproductions are two per not particularly large page, making appreciation of the wealth of fine detail difficult. Making the pages larger in area or number, however, would make for a very unwieldy book indeed, considering the already 800p+ scale of this edition. Hence I might look for books containing subsets of the whole but reproduced much larger.

Anyone interested in Roman architectural remains should probably give this volume a perusal.

Having burned through two pseudo-protagonists in fifty pages, the third candidate may actually be the real thing.

A Mad World, My Masters, Sc.1.1: Some fun verbal wit that isn't also bawdry. Already we've got conmen and women and use of sex to gull victims. Seems familiar...

Apparently it's A Mad World, My Masters.

As soon as Zeus turns his attention away from Troy, Poseidon arrives (by horse drawn chariot, over the sea) and encourages, shames and bullies the Achaeans into mounting a fierce defense of their beached ships. Ajax and Ajax recognise the god and lead the renewed effort.