2009/69: The Light Ages -- Ian MacLeod

The Light Ages -- Ian MacLeod

...aether is like no other element, and it shuns all physical rules. It is weightless, and notoriously difficult to contain. Purified, its wyreglow fills the darkness, but spills shadows in bright light. Strangest of all, and yet most crucial to all the industries and livelihoods it helps sustain, aether responds to the will of the human spirit ... with it, we are able to make things more thinly, more cheaply, more quickly and — it has to be admitted — often more crudely than the harsh and inconvenient rules of simple nature would ever allow. Boilers which would otherwise explode, pistons which would stutter, buildings and beams and bearings which would shatter and crumble, are borne aloft from mere physics on the aether-fuelled bubbles of guildsmen's spells. (p.30)

( non-spoilery review )

2009/70: Lavinia -- Ursula Le Guin

Lavinia -- Ursula Le Guin

His words were all the music of it, his words were its drumbeat, clack of the loom, tread of feet, oarstroke, heartbeat, waves breaking on the beach at Troy away across the world. (p. 44)

( maybe slightly spoilery review )

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts & Culture | Pictures that paint a thousand words

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts & Culture | Pictures that paint a thousand words

Interesting piece on use of text in art. The accompanying slideshow has some examples I want to rush off and see!

Oh, and some distressing punctuation (Fiona Banner's 'literary car chase' is a punctuation carcrash). Get me out of here, I'm a proofreader ...