Me. 41 years old today

First lets have some music...


I celebrated myself with a purchase of some assorted light cavalry from Crusader Miniatures; Six Normans, six Spaniards and the three crossbow carrying Hobilars. Its not the biggest order I've ever placed, but its the first in a while as I've not had the time, nor the brass to spare on my favourite waste of time... well thats not strictly true, I painted some Saxon slingers and I started on som American GI's, but I didn't finish them as I decided that the colours I'd chosen weren't quite right for the uniforms America was issuing to its GI's in 1939 (the figures have to be coloured as if they were from the 1930's as that way they fit better into Rocketman games).

One thing I have had plenty of time for (I've been a bit sick these last few days) is reading; I read 'The Mystery of the Black Jungle' by Emilio Salgari, and then 'Queenpin' by Megan Abbott.

'The Mystery of the Black Jungle' sounds like a delightfully old fashioned adventure yarn, and it is. Emilio Salgari was an Italian author, and something of a pioneer of Italian science fiction in his day, and this story reads like something Kipling might have dreamt up. Bearing in mind its age and things may have been slightly lost in translation, the story is plenty good and the structure is unusual, but in a good way. Divided into two halves the plot revoleves around a young Indian hunter and his love for a young damsel in distress. The first half of the story is described from the hunters perspectiveas he set about rescuing the maiden and the second half describes what happens when he fails...

'Queenpin' is my second novel by Megan Abbott and although I enjoyed it, I even found it to be quite novel, its too short and uneventful to really warrant its own cover. Essentially this one is an elongated short story I think; an idea that got stretched to justify status as a novel. The story is about a young woman, eager for the golden trappings available through corruption and vice, who is taken in by an older, more experienced woman, one who has seen and done it all and come out on top. The two have a strange relationship and things eventually go pear shaped. In essence Abbott has reversed the old yarn about the two best friends who get split up when a woman enters the picture, only here its a man of course, but there is also something slightly more to it than that as Abbott spins and then unravels the relationship between the two women.