Those Upon Whom I Look

 I just got a subscription to Amazon and the extra for Apple TV, so that I could watch Murderbot - which was every bit as good as I had hoped.

Though I'm not sure the 20min episode format was the right choice.  I'd have liked them a bit longer.

Having got the subscription for a three month trial, I'm seeing what else are must-watches.

I've just watched the musical 'Come From Away' which was brilliant, and I highly recommend.  I had no idea what it was about, just took a punt on it.

It followed what happened in Gander, Newfoundland, when masses of planes got diverted after 9/11.  

It's a stage production, hardly any scenery apart from a dozen chairs, but some great singers!

'Pluribus' is probably next on my list - any other suggestions?

 Some recent reads:

'Black Hearts in Battersea' by Joan Aiken  4/5

This is a cheerful romp of a book!

Set in the fictitious reign of James III, it has pretty much everything a young reader could wish for (my 11 year old granddaughter loved it!): adventure, kidnapping, hot air balloons, shipwreck, an eccentric Duke, an attempt to murder the king, lots of fun characters and the lost heir to a Dukedom.

Fast paced and laced with humorous situations.

----------------

We have a deal going on. I read a book my granddaughter recommends and she reads one I rec.  So I've just finished Black Hearts in Battersea, and she enjoyed Heinlen's 'Rolling Stones'.

----------------

Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel  2/5

I really wanted to like this, as I enjoyed the TV series.

Unfortunately, I dislike most books written in the first person, and most books written in the present tense  - this book is both.

I couldn't get though many pages before giving up.

Hopefully, most other readers won't find this an issue, but for me personally, I can only give it two stars.

----------

Bookshops and Bonedust - Travis Baldree 3/5

This one disappointed me.

Surely a writer as popular as Travis Baldree can get decent beta-readers/editors who actually have some decent general knowledge?

Fantasy requires 'suspension of disbelief'.  I can believe in a lesbian, dwarf baker falling for an orc twice her size.  I can happily buy an evil necromancer, an ailing bookshop, etc.

But I cannot buy a character being stabbed twice rapidly in her leg by a pike.  I'm a re-enactor.  A pike is an 18ft long weapon, cumbersome, and used as part of a pike block.

If you want to stab someone close up, use a spear!

Happened again right at the end.  A warrior sat rosining his bowstring.

Even my 11-year-old granddaughter spotted what was wrong with that...

You rosin a violin bow.  (It makes the horsehair sticker so it has more friction with the violin strings)

Rosining an archer's bowstring (which is definitely not made of horsehair) is complete nonsense.

Without those gaffes, I'd probably have given it a rating of 4, although there was a geological error as well...

It may sound nit-picky, but if I'm absorbed in a story, something that is clearly wrong jerks me out of my belief in that story.