Laura Jean McKay's award-winning The Animals in that Country (2020) won't be for everyone, but I really liked it. A pandemic sweeps the world; we see it from the perspective of an emotionally-damaged Australian woman who works at an animal sanctuary/wildlife park. The effect of this particular pandemic include pink eyes, and the ability to understand the languages of animals. This is not Dr. Dolittle; what animals say,through sounds, smells, and so forth, gets represented as broken poetry expressing, for the most part, plausibly limited but revealing concepts and feelings. The consequences-- as our hearing of nonhuman "language" gradually spreads from beasts and birds to insects-- are often horrific, and social collapse becomes imminent. Meanwhile, our protagonist and her dingo companion must make her way through this world to find her granddaughter, abducted by a non-custodial parent.
Some notes:
(1) McKay took the title from a late-60s collection of poetry by Margaret Atwood. These are different books.
(2) I initially assumed I knew what her inspiration was for, you know, a book about a pandemic. In fact, her starting point, I learned, was the chikungunya virus, which the author caught in Bali. Like Station Eleven, the book predated the recent global pandemic, and received a coincidentally timely release.
(3) One of its awards was the Arthur C. Clarke. I find it deserving of that award, but I suspect that a subset of SF fans are grousing somewhere on the internet. I won't be seeking them out.
(4) .erachtlaeh ni sesirc gnidulcni ,detaerc sah noitartsinimda rieht sesirc tnerruc eht morf gnitcartsid ylraelc loot eliv era icuaF retfa gniog yltnerruc SU eht ni elpoep eht dnA .tseb ta gnikniht yzzuf s'taht tub ",cimednalp" a fo ecnedive sa desu eb lliw nevelE noitatS dna koob siht fo esaeler eht fo gnimit eht esoppus I
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S STAR WARS TRILOGY - ("Verily, a New Hope," "The Empire Striketh Back" and ""The Jedi Doth Return")
As I mentioned above, I'm "reading toward a specific goal," but this isn't it. There was time when I intended to read all nine "Shakespeare" plays in a row, which I still may do someday, but this isn't the time. I've read all three of these before, once each, but this is my first time reading them back-to-back. One thing I like about these is how Ian Doescher handles other languages and dilects. In the case of R2-D2 and Chewbacca, he translates their speech verbatim into iambic pentameter; Yoda speaks in haiku; Bobo Fett (to designate he is of a lower status) speaks in prose rather than metered lines; the Ugnaughts sing. Perhaps my favorite speech pattern is the one he gives to the Ewoks, an AABA rhyme scheme with a dash of pidgin English thrown in. For example, Wicket's first line when he finds Leia unconscious in the forest is...
A buki buki, Luki, luki, Issa creecher, Nuki, nuki!
(...which translates as "Look, look, it's a creature).
THE SKELETON AND THE CAT - A SPANIARD IN THE WORKS / IN HIS OWN WRITE:
Tracy bought this children's book recently because she likes skeletons and she likes cats. It's really very good, and I recommend it to anyone who has kids on their list. I wish we had had it earlier this summer when my niece brought my niblings (5 and 6) out for a visit, but there's always next year. We read many other books while we were together, though, including some Shel Silverstein. I continued to read Silverstein after they left, which put me in the mood to read some John Lennon.
I still have my paperback copy from high school, but I found this really nice hardcover edition on Amazon for sale cheap, so I bought it.
I'm going to start this one soon. I finally finished all of the High Republic novels (it actually sticks the landing!) and also completed the very entertaining "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet" by Becky Chambers (sort of a cozy Firefly).
I've taken a short (I hope) break from Star Wars to read some REH Conan. I've taken a stab at this two or three times in my life, but never made it all the way through. This time I'm starting with the three earliest stories in Conan's timeline that were published in Howard's lifetime. The number in parenthesis denotes the the sequence in which Howard wrote them. I also re-read the Marvel Comics adaptation even though I read them recently.
"The Tower of the Elephant" (3) - Conan is about 19 years old at this point, making his living as a thief. [Marvel #4]
"Rogues in the House"(7) - [Marvel #11]
"Queen of the Black Coast" (9) - Conan traveled with the pirate queen Bêlit for three years, but I didn't get the impression that this story spanned that amount of time. Maybe I wasn't reading closely enough. [Marvel #58, et al]
That's enough of the early stuff. Think I'll move on to some of Howard's later work next.
doc photo > Jeff of Earth-JAugust 19, 2026 at 9:49am
Earlier this year I started a re-read of the Howard Conan stories. This time around I was reading them in chronological order of Conans life. I read up to Red Nails then stalled. At some point I will pick it up again.
I've read three more "Conan" stories (in bold below). Sticking with the Cimmerian's early career, I moved on to Howard's last three Conan stories, all published posthumously. I cannot really dscern a difference in style, but he wrote Conan stories for only about three years before he committed suicide. Although he did write a few longer serials, these stories are short enough to be read in a single sitting. I have two more in mind before moving back to Star Wars. (Again, the number in parenthesis designates the order in which the Conan stories were published.)
"The Tower of the Elephant" (3)
"The God in the Bowl" (18)
"Rogues in the House" (7)
"The Frost Giant's Daughter" (19)
"Queen of the Black Coast" (9)
"The Vale of Lost Women" (20)
Earlier this year I started a re-read of the Howard Conan stories.
We share many similar tastes, you and I.
doc photo > Jeff of Earth-JAugust 22, 2026 at 10:15am
Although I did not read any original REH stories until 1982, between the Marvel comic book and the ever-present paperbacks on drugstore bookracks, I have been aware of Conan the Barbarian for nearly as long as I can remember. I probably didn't realize he was ever a king until 1980, and it wasn't until a few years after that that I realized Conan was already a king in Howard's first two Conan stories.
"The Phoenix on the Sword" (1)
"The Scarlet Citadel" (2)
On my first (unsuccessful) attempt to read all of Conan, I read them in chronological order of Conan's timeline; on my second attempt (also unsuccessful), I read them in the order REH wrote them. REH would write only one additional Conan story, his 16th, a novel, set after "The Scarlet Citadel." So, all of the eight Conan stories I have read recently I have read before, but I've never enjoyed them as much as I did this time through. this is all the Conan I plan to read at the present time, but when I return to the character, I will concentrate on the stories I have never read.
I've got one more brief thing to read before I return to my Star Wars reading.
One more thing about "Conan" before I forget (again). One criticism I have encountered concerning the comic books is that Conan is to verbose in comparison to the novels. I don't think that's necessarily true, but it occurs to me that I wish someone would publish a "red letter" version of the REH Conan stories.
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Laura Jean McKay's award-winning The Animals in that Country (2020) won't be for everyone, but I really liked it. A pandemic sweeps the world; we see it from the perspective of an emotionally-damaged Australian woman who works at an animal sanctuary/wildlife park. The effect of this particular pandemic include pink eyes, and the ability to understand the languages of animals. This is not Dr. Dolittle; what animals say,through sounds, smells, and so forth, gets represented as broken poetry expressing, for the most part, plausibly limited but revealing concepts and feelings. The consequences-- as our hearing of nonhuman "language" gradually spreads from beasts and birds to insects-- are often horrific, and social collapse becomes imminent. Meanwhile, our protagonist and her dingo companion must make her way through this world to find her granddaughter, abducted by a non-custodial parent.
Some notes:
(1) McKay took the title from a late-60s collection of poetry by Margaret Atwood. These are different books.
(2) I initially assumed I knew what her inspiration was for, you know, a book about a pandemic. In fact, her starting point, I learned, was the chikungunya virus, which the author caught in Bali. Like Station Eleven, the book predated the recent global pandemic, and received a coincidentally timely release.
(3) One of its awards was the Arthur C. Clarke. I find it deserving of that award, but I suspect that a subset of SF fans are grousing somewhere on the internet. I won't be seeking them out.
(4) .erachtlaeh ni sesirc gnidulcni ,detaerc sah noitartsinimda rieht sesirc tnerruc eht morf gnitcartsid ylraelc loot eliv era icuaF retfa gniog yltnerruc SU eht ni elpoep eht dnA .tseb ta gnikniht yzzuf s'taht tub ",cimednalp" a fo ecnedive sa desu eb lliw nevelE noitatS dna koob siht fo esaeler eht fo gnimit eht esoppus I
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S STAR WARS TRILOGY - ("Verily, a New Hope," "The Empire Striketh Back" and ""The Jedi Doth Return")
As I mentioned above, I'm "reading toward a specific goal," but this isn't it. There was time when I intended to read all nine "Shakespeare" plays in a row, which I still may do someday, but this isn't the time. I've read all three of these before, once each, but this is my first time reading them back-to-back. One thing I like about these is how Ian Doescher handles other languages and dilects. In the case of R2-D2 and Chewbacca, he translates their speech verbatim into iambic pentameter; Yoda speaks in haiku; Bobo Fett (to designate he is of a lower status) speaks in prose rather than metered lines; the Ugnaughts sing. Perhaps my favorite speech pattern is the one he gives to the Ewoks, an AABA rhyme scheme with a dash of pidgin English thrown in. For example, Wicket's first line when he finds Leia unconscious in the forest is...
A buki buki,
Luki, luki,
Issa creecher,
Nuki, nuki!
(...which translates as "Look, look, it's a creature).
For the goal I've been reading toward, see "The Adventures of Luke Skywalker."
THE SKELETON AND THE CAT - A SPANIARD IN THE WORKS / IN HIS OWN WRITE:
Tracy bought this children's book recently because she likes skeletons and she likes cats. It's really very good, and I recommend it to anyone who has kids on their list. I wish we had had it earlier this summer when my niece brought my niblings (5 and 6) out for a visit, but there's always next year. We read many other books while we were together, though, including some Shel Silverstein. I continued to read Silverstein after they left, which put me in the mood to read some John Lennon.
I still have my paperback copy from high school, but I found this really nice hardcover edition on Amazon for sale cheap, so I bought it.
I'm going to start this one soon. I finally finished all of the High Republic novels (it actually sticks the landing!) and also completed the very entertaining "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet" by Becky Chambers (sort of a cozy Firefly).
I've taken a short (I hope) break from Star Wars to read some REH Conan. I've taken a stab at this two or three times in my life, but never made it all the way through. This time I'm starting with the three earliest stories in Conan's timeline that were published in Howard's lifetime. The number in parenthesis denotes the the sequence in which Howard wrote them. I also re-read the Marvel Comics adaptation even though I read them recently.
That's enough of the early stuff. Think I'll move on to some of Howard's later work next.
Earlier this year I started a re-read of the Howard Conan stories. This time around I was reading them in chronological order of Conans life. I read up to Red Nails then stalled. At some point I will pick it up again.
Right now I am reading a bio of Jeff Beck.
I've read three more "Conan" stories (in bold below). Sticking with the Cimmerian's early career, I moved on to Howard's last three Conan stories, all published posthumously. I cannot really dscern a difference in style, but he wrote Conan stories for only about three years before he committed suicide. Although he did write a few longer serials, these stories are short enough to be read in a single sitting. I have two more in mind before moving back to Star Wars. (Again, the number in parenthesis designates the order in which the Conan stories were published.)
Earlier this year I started a re-read of the Howard Conan stories.
We share many similar tastes, you and I.
Very true.
Although I did not read any original REH stories until 1982, between the Marvel comic book and the ever-present paperbacks on drugstore bookracks, I have been aware of Conan the Barbarian for nearly as long as I can remember. I probably didn't realize he was ever a king until 1980, and it wasn't until a few years after that that I realized Conan was already a king in Howard's first two Conan stories.
On my first (unsuccessful) attempt to read all of Conan, I read them in chronological order of Conan's timeline; on my second attempt (also unsuccessful), I read them in the order REH wrote them. REH would write only one additional Conan story, his 16th, a novel, set after "The Scarlet Citadel." So, all of the eight Conan stories I have read recently I have read before, but I've never enjoyed them as much as I did this time through. this is all the Conan I plan to read at the present time, but when I return to the character, I will concentrate on the stories I have never read.
I've got one more brief thing to read before I return to my Star Wars reading.
One more thing about "Conan" before I forget (again). One criticism I have encountered concerning the comic books is that Conan is to verbose in comparison to the novels. I don't think that's necessarily true, but it occurs to me that I wish someone would publish a "red letter" version of the REH Conan stories.
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