2016/26: Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? -- Paul Cornell

2016/26: Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? -- Paul Cornell

The Sight made Greenwich into somewhere that smelt of the sea, and overwhelmed you with the knowledge of time. She could feel, in this hill, the small weight of her own years, the steady decay of everything, how short a while was left to her. From the hill she could see, above London, constellations, a web of lines actually drawn in the sky, making the stars feel trapped. As they walked higher, the feeling got more and more intense, like they were inside an enormous clock, and she knew it was about to strike the hour. It felt like the grandeur above them was locked, by this hill, into the notion of Britishness, that here was somewhere that connected the eternal to Empire. This feeling was still at play in London below, but it was complicated, worrying. Here was displayed, for all to get nervous about, one of the grand certainties that nobody felt certain of anymore. [loc. 2925]

( slightly spoilery review )

2016/27: The Messenger of Athens -- Anne Zouroudi

2016/27: The Messenger of Athens -- Anne Zouroudi

'There are no gods.'
'Why so certain? Look.' He gestured towards the hillsides, and at the open sea. 'This is their terrain. They're not far away. Some say when the people stopped believing in them, they ceased to exist. But this view's still what it was when Jason built the Argo and the Minotaur was eating virgins in the labyrinth. Two thousand years, and nothing's changed; and don't think they’ve gone! Orthodoxy is just a façade, a veneer. If you look around, really look' – he pointed to the centre of his forehead – 'using this eye, then you start to see. They're here. They’re watching. And interfering.'
Far inside his stomach came a shot of pain, as if a spiteful finger had found and poked at the heart of its disease. [loc. 764]

( no spoilers )