This is how I start my Tuesday
Breakfast of semi-scrambled eggs (which is what I get when I fuck up sunny side up eggs) seasoned in Garam Masala, plus banana, strawberries and toast w/honey peanut butter.
Yesterday I started reading Imaro by Charles R. Saunders. Really fun sword and sorcery with an African setting. The stories were originally published across the 70’s and 80’s, this is the first of three books. Imaro is often compared to Robert E. Howard’s Conan. Howard is an obvious influence on Saunders, but where Conan is an adventurer with lofty aspirations who does pretty much whatever the hell he wants, Imaro is a troubled young warrior, hated by his kinsfolk for something his estranged mother did. Saunders, being of African descent himself, injects tribal warfare and a vivid re-imagining of the Dark Continent (Called “Nyumbani” in the books) with a character who is an outcast among his own people. Shit, there’s even a prophecy involved! The prose is fifty shades of fockin’ purple and there’s enough adverbs to give pause to a herd of stampeding gazelle, but so far the stories are a grand time in the Schoole of Olde.
I’m working on a fantasy novel and series of short stories about a mercenary captain and his ship, so I picked up Scourge of the Seas for a little research on buccaneering history to help myself out with ship anatomy, battles on the high seas, naval politics, period dress, life on the water and all that fun stuff. This is a great, high-quality book that works through The Golden Age of Piracy, providing historical background and dispelling some of our favorite sea-faring myths along the way. Isn’t learning fun?
What’chu reading on this glorious Tuesday?
Penbanger 