Sunday 26 February 2012

Look, I'm Back!

Busy times are busy, but I try to leverage everything that is demanded of me, by myself and others. During the few sparse, awake and creative moments I had last week, I contemplated a bit more Nadiya's life and decided to give her a partner.
Now that I come to think about that, I get the feeling that my flashes are all a bit too heterosexual... I hope nobody gets offended by that! The specific experiment in Fifteen needed to be heterosexual though, since it's also about the good old way of producing offspring.

Prompt fifteen was
""Fear not," he said, in a voice as soft as silk"
which I liked for the topic I chose, but found difficult to include anyway. Having that as the first sentence of a conversation and then a "he" saying it is quite unusual.
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Monday 20 February 2012

I Owe You an Apology

Beach Roses for You.
The last Flash was posted February 9, which was more than a week ago! It also was a strange post... I promise to ameliorate (which is such a nice word)!
Last week I was very busy with other projects, planning a vacation, the more and more demanding courses of Code Year and the British Books Challenge 2012. One project is finished now, though, and I hope to get the outline for my vacation ready within the next few days. The weekly Monday appointments with my allergologist are also very useful for writing, so the next Flash will be started today.

I will try to keep it at at least one Flash a week for now.

Sunday 12 February 2012

Review: Equal Rites


Equal Rites
Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
eBook

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Despite this wonderful picture, I decided to read through the whole discworld series in publishing order. This means that today my third review for the British Books Challenge 2012 is about Equal Rites, first published in 1987. Please be aware that this review contains spoilers.

The first two novels introduced and followed the wizard Rincewind, while this third book turns towards the witches of the discworld, who practice magic on a very different level. In Equal Rites, by the mistake of an old wizard in a hurry, a new born girl inherits the magical staff of said wizard. The baby was thought to be the eighth son of an eighth son, destined to become a wizard, and the old wizard in question wanted to give his staff to the boy before his own death. As is so often the case with men – and especially with wizards – he didn't pay any attention to the witch – Granny Weatherwax – who had helped during the birth of the child. She tries to tell him that it's a girl, but neither he nor the baby's father listen until it's too late. The father, who is the local blacksmith, tries to destroy the staff afterwards, but is unable to do so. He hides it instead and hopes that his daughter will grow up normal. Which of course she doesn't.
Around the age of eight, she is lost in the woods at night, in winter. When wolves threaten to harm her, the staff comes to her rescue, killing the wolves. After this incident, Granny Weatherwax tries – in vain – to destroy the staff. She also takes on the girl, whose name is Esk, as apprentice to become a witch. She tries to train her, but it become apparent that Esk cannot control her wizard powers when she turns one of her brothers into a pig. Granny Weatherwax then takes Esk to Unseen University for training, but women are not meant to be wizards... That she helps save the world does give her a certain advantage, though.

I know Granny Weatherwax from the much younger series around Tiffany Aching. She's called Mistress Weatherwax there and – somehow – totally different from the witch in this book! Not in all aspects, mind you, but still very different. This is the main reason why I didn't like Equal Rites as much as I could have. It was so confusing to read! Still, there was fun and adventure, as you would expect from Terry Pratchett, so it's still worth recommending.


View all my reviews on goodreads.
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Saturday 11 February 2012

Make it Stop

A new progress bar 50%
Image via Wikipedia
Imagine this:
Hayfever at the beginning of January, wishing for real winter.
Suddenly, real winter. It's cold enough to notice the heating at home isn't working properly. It gets uncomfortably cold and the first tries of repair don't work. The only warm place is the office, but work is unpleasant enough by itself to feel uncomfortable there as well.
Imagine a cold that has no chance to be cured. Imagine putting the butter in the fridge so it won't get too hard to use. Imagine feeling worse every day. If you had a progress bar somewhere on you, it would say "Self-destruction in progress...".
Then take this sentence and write:
"even before the child's forefinger had time to unfold"
What do you think would happen?
If you want, you can read The Perks of Being a Wallflower during that time as well, just for the feel of it.
Could you do what I did in Fourteen? Would you?
And can you ever really stop caring?

On a totally unrelated note, I only read the book again because Lili said there would be a movie. When I told others about it, I was asked what the book was all about and I couldn't remember. That Hugo stopped working the same weekend was my chance to read it again.
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Friday 3 February 2012

Another Fateful Encounter

The next Flash is finally online! It's 13, my favourite number. :-) The prompt was one of my favourites as well:
"just as lightning sweeps across the sky, pouring out a flood of light over the landscape for a second or two"
It was easy to identify with, take up the style and produce something new, in this case the first encounter of Elisabet and John, both of whom you've met before. They'll have a daughter called Nadiya later. ;-)

Talking about fateful encounters... Do you believe fate exists? Or serendipity, or something similar? In this case, one could argue that two people fell in love because they have something in common already: taking walks where no one normally does. Is that enough of a reason to reject fate?


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