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A rather shitty weekend-plus of rhinovirus, migraine, and oh-oops-not-menopause-completely-yet have at least given me more reading time, so I can now say I've read every word of the Dalziel-Pascoe series. Alas, sort of. I mean, it's been fun, but this is it, and unlike with living authors, or authors who were at least living when I finished their books, I can't expect more (although that's not all he wrote, so I could read the stand-alones and the other short series too).
There's also the oddity of having read it so out of order - yeah, I did enter the Vorkosigan saga with Komarr and the Aubrey-Maturin books with The Letter of Marque, but then corrected my error quickly and started at the beginning. This time, not so much, and I'll need to wait a while before going through it all again in the right sequence. I ended up with Child's Play, which is probably best known to fans as "the one where Wield comes out," provoking the totally unflappable Dalziel to the response in the subject line (and "I'd have been worried else that I'd not mentioned it to you." Pascoe, the (relatively) sensitive liberal, is of course flabbergasted at the revelation). Other stuff happens too, naturally: murder and such.
So, overall, much worth the time invested: some of them are just pretty good, some are damned clever, some give me that feeling I recall from first venturing into O'Brian that I'm being ravished by someone with complete control over the language and a talent for distraction from any inadequacies that exist.
I'm also feeling a trifle Yorkshire-dominated, between Hill's books, "Downton Abbey," and the kid starting rehearsals (as assistant director) for "The Secret Garden" (the musical). Maybe a revisit to "All Creatures Great and Small" would be appropriate.
All caught up to US broadcast on "Downton," by the way, so 2.06 or "The war is over, hurrah, now we can devote ourselves fully to soap opera." I think any show where I greet the credits with crack-filled (yet entirely likely) predictions for the next episode has outlived its creative drama potential, but I'm still having fun with it, and we'll see how far they can push the melodrama; please do not spoil me.
And, oh shit, I have a lot of work to catch up on. Let's start with more caffeine.
There's also the oddity of having read it so out of order - yeah, I did enter the Vorkosigan saga with Komarr and the Aubrey-Maturin books with The Letter of Marque, but then corrected my error quickly and started at the beginning. This time, not so much, and I'll need to wait a while before going through it all again in the right sequence. I ended up with Child's Play, which is probably best known to fans as "the one where Wield comes out," provoking the totally unflappable Dalziel to the response in the subject line (and "I'd have been worried else that I'd not mentioned it to you." Pascoe, the (relatively) sensitive liberal, is of course flabbergasted at the revelation). Other stuff happens too, naturally: murder and such.
So, overall, much worth the time invested: some of them are just pretty good, some are damned clever, some give me that feeling I recall from first venturing into O'Brian that I'm being ravished by someone with complete control over the language and a talent for distraction from any inadequacies that exist.
I'm also feeling a trifle Yorkshire-dominated, between Hill's books, "Downton Abbey," and the kid starting rehearsals (as assistant director) for "The Secret Garden" (the musical). Maybe a revisit to "All Creatures Great and Small" would be appropriate.
All caught up to US broadcast on "Downton," by the way, so 2.06 or "The war is over, hurrah, now we can devote ourselves fully to soap opera." I think any show where I greet the credits with crack-filled (yet entirely likely) predictions for the next episode has outlived its creative drama potential, but I'm still having fun with it, and we'll see how far they can push the melodrama; please do not spoil me.
And, oh shit, I have a lot of work to catch up on. Let's start with more caffeine.
