This week, we finally managed to install our new (not new ) item of furniture - a mid-18th Century grandfather clock. It's not bright and shiny like more modern ones, but a dark oak with a warm patina which the beeswax polish is drawing out. In order to set it up, we had to do a certain amount of research - how to hang the pendulum, where the weight went on the endless chain - and it got me thinking... where and when did certain divisions of time come from? The time periods which I have written either had household clocks or didn't, I have not written novels from the time of their invention. Clocks have been around for a long time, and the obsession with measuring time in an ordered fashion dates back to at least the ancient Sumerians. It was they who established a circular reading of time and, I imagine, the sixty seconds/minutes came about as much because it was an easy way to divide a circle as anything else. But it wasn't until much later that the precision of seconds ...
"Only One Death" by Alexander Crow
Book Review
 |
☆☆☆☆☆
“Only One Death” is an engaging novel, which is quite dark
in places, but creates a sense of urgency for the reader to read on…you need to
find out what’s going to happen next!! As a result, this is a very difficult
book to put down!
It is a fantasy novel and some of the names can be a bit
tricky, especially as it is about a group of 10 people. Three characters, in
particular, are very well developed. As it is a novella, it is quite short, but
you feel like you really know some of the characters by the end.
The book is written by someone who knows how to survive in
the wilderness, and this comes across in the writing. The wilds play an
important role in the story, and is clearly important to the author. The reader
is left pondering on a time when more of Britain was engulfed in wilderness,
rather than the towns and settlements we know today.
I would certainly recommend this book to any lover of
fantasy stories.
Book Blurb (from Goodreads)
“Amongst his people ten was an unlucky number.”
Dhinal is searching for a guide into the high mountains. With his mismatched band of companions, he knows he must find the legendary Red City. Meanwhile, in Eastsea, Kees prepares to leave behind the Talking Races for winter. Both Dhinal and Kees know that nature does not care whether you live, or whether you die. Both Dhinal and Kees know that even the best prepared of expeditions can falter and fail. A journey into the mountains, with winter approaching. A group with secrets to hide. What could possibly go wrong? The novella Only One Death is the first of three introductions to the Isthmus, and both a homage and an alternative approach to the standard fantasy quest. |
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