No Music This Week

Sunday 9th March: ...and a distinct lack of musical activity this week leads to thoughts on football and a bit more on the books I have been reading.

The last couple of days have seen the most interesting round of the F.A. Cup that I can remember. I have just finished watching West Brom beat Bristol Rovers 5:1, but that was the only game that went to form. Earlier today Cardiff City beat Middlesbrough 2:0. I have no great love for the Welsh side (for historic reasons relating to Leeds United) but, being honest, they deserved the win seeing as they were playing a below-par Boro who seemed to have forgotten that the aim of the game is to score goals.

Perhaps more surprising were the results of the Man Utd v Portsmouth (0:1) and Barnsley v Chelsea (1:0) games. The dumping out of the competition of two of the top four English teams was particularly satisfying given the amount of chances both of them squandered - if you can't score from some of the chances that they had, you don't deserve to win games, let alone trophies. Portsmouth are now favourites for the Cup but, given that Barnsley knocked out Liverpool on the previous round, I think they are worth watching.

On a more personal note, it was good to see Leeds get there first Elland Road win under Gary McAllister (and second win in a row), even if it wasn't a particularly good performance against a bottom-of-the-table team. (Who am I kidding? It wasn't anywhere near a good performance.) The win moves us another place closer to the play-off places - now our only hope of a chance of promotion.

Since the last time I wrote about books, I have only finished two more. First up was Cavalcade (Alison Sinclair, 1998) tells the story of tens of thousands of people who have volunteered to be taken away by a fleet of alien spaceships, focusing on a sub-group of these "passengers" who are trying to work out the secrets behind the vessels themselves. The book was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke award (the UK's premier science fiction award) but I have no idea why. Despite the characters being a random group from different backgrounds, they all speak with the same voice, making it difficult to distinguish between them. The plot did nothing for me and the final revelation was a let-down. Although only 300 pages long, this book took an age to read. I have previously read Bluheart (1997) by Sinclair and didn't enjoy that one either. I don't think I'll be reading any more of her books.

Much more satisfying and with more of the sense of wonder that I like in SF was Reckoning Infinity (John E. Stith, 1997). The crew of a spaceship explores the interior of a Big Dumb Object which is moving through the solar system. So far, so Rendezvous With Rama and, in the cold light of day, this book is nowhere near as good as the Clarke classic. However, with an interesting bunch of characters, including a doctor who was pilotting a shuttle when it crashed into an Earth-orbit space-station and a first officer who was almost fatally injured in that crash, resulting in a lot of her body being replaced and thus formenting a hatred of the person she sees as the cause of the accident, this was a whole lot better than Cavalcade. Like Rama, the ending practically cries out for a sequel. Unfortunately, this appears to have been Stith's last novel (so far, anyway).

My current read is Lady of the Forest (Jennifer Roberson, 1993), which is a huge 700+ page retelling of the Robin Hood legend. Despite a fairly dense prose style, this is one of the best books I have read for a long time. It focuses on how Robin, haunted by his experiences in the Crusades, becomes an outlaw rather than his adventures as one - I'm less than 200 pages from the end and, while we have met the men of Sherwood, Robin has yet to join them - and also gives Marion a much bigger part in the story. All the characters are there, as are all the recognisable bits of the legend (the staff fight with Little John, archery contests, schemes against Prince John, etc) and the story is told with a richness and honesty that brings the era to live.