Character View: Carrot Ironfounderson, GUARDS,GUARDS, Terry Pratchett.

One of the best reasons to read Terry Pratchett is to experience his characters. One of my favorites is Carrot, the 2 meter tall adopted dwarf who debuts in GUARDS, GUARDS.

Carrot starts out as a naive young man who has to be told he's adopted by his dwarf parents. Rescued long ago when bandits attacked a cart near the mine, he's been clueless even though his dwarf name means 'Head-Banger.' His parents innocently send him to wicked Ankh-Morpork to become a watchman. Carrot has read all the "Laws and Ordinances of Ankh-Morpork" and is ready to enforce every one. For example, he actually arrests the head of the Thieves' Guild for thieving. But he quickly learns it's legally established, the better to collect taxes from, and protects the citizenry from filching for a small sum per annum. His sergeant saves him from disaster when he approaches the Patrician, supreme ruler of the city, about a vehicle violation.

He's appalled by the vicious world of dwarf bars, wades into the fighting, reminds them in Dwarfish them to think of their mothers, and brings the battlers to tears. Carrot also shares dwarfish tendencies to think literally, and doesn't understand metaphor. Woe betide the evil-doer when Captain Vimes finally tells Carrot to throw the book at him.

By the end of the book Carrot is rallying his cowardly NCO superiors to risk advances towards the dragon. He's strangely persuasive for one so young. It seems that everyone wants to follow Carrot. Maybe it has something to do with his crown-shaped birthmark, or the non-magical, but very powerful, sword he carries...

ROUTE 66 A.D.,HOW THE ROMANS INVENTED TOURISM, by Tony Perrottet, non-fiction

I referenced Tony Perrottet in my post on GUARDS, GUARDS, and realized that I hadn't written about this book. This is another quirky travel book which describes the Romans' love of travel, and their determination to write comments about their trips in ancient graffiti.They loved the Egyptian tombs--just see their writings, still to be seen below ancient hieroglyphs. Perrottet and his pregnant girlfriend, who sounds like a remarkably patient sort, retrace the Romans pathways from Greece to the Mideast to Egypt. Perrottet vividly recounts Roman experiences at the first Olympics--the Naked Olympics, expanded in greater detail in his book of that title.

Interestingly enough, Lindsey Davis describes these same paths of tourism in SEE DELPHI AND DIE, a Marcus Didius Falco Roman PI book. Davis is punctilious about her research, and the two books together illuminate this fascinating and previously unknown area of Roman life. It's astonishing the way that our choreographed and prissy Olympics have evolved from the vicious Grecian ones.

Quick Take: PLEASE PASS THE BUTTERWORMS,Tim Cahill. Nonfiction

Tim Cahill has made a career, he says, of remote journeys oddly rendered. He wanted to title his latest offbeat travel book something else, but his publisher insisted on another quirky title to go with JAGUARS RIPPED MY FLESH, A WOLVERINE IS EATING MY LEG, and PECKED TO DEATH BY DUCKS. His first chapter describes his horseback riding trip to Mongolia. His quest—bringing back hair to help researchers determine whether Mongols might be the original New Worlders. They'll compare the hair with ancient hair retrieved from archeology sites.

His insights on the Mongolian's horses fascinated me. Mongolians, he says, almost never name their ponies, the Mongolians being about as sentimental about their horses as Americans are about their cars. Plus, the ponies are never fed and are expected to forage, punching their hooves through ice in -60F weather. No wonder they're the toughest horses on earth.

Also by the same author: ROAD FEVER, an account of his record-breaking trip with a professional driver from the tip to top of the Pan-American Highway—Tierra del Fuego to Point Barrow, Alaska.

GUARDS, GUARDS, by Terry Pratchett

Writing a review of a Terry Pratchett book at this date is, as author Tony Perrottet observed on a similar occasion, like writing a restaurant review of that quaint little cafe with the golden arches. But some may not know the best-selling U.K. comedy fantasy writer, and GUARDS,GUARDS makes a good introduction to his Discworld series.

A group of hooded conspirators plots to reestablish the defunct kingship of Ankh-Morpork. They plan to summon a dragon by illegal magic, and to control it while their puppet king makes it disappear. But the dragon can't be so quickly banished and attacks the city, soon crowning itself king.

The bedraggled City Watch has dwindled to four-their drunken captain, Sam Vimes, crass sergeant Fred Colon, runty “Nobby” Nobbs, and new recruit, Carrot, the two meter tall adopted dwarf who is keen to arrest anyone. Vimes can barely rouse himself to care about anything until the dragon threatens the city.

The four watchmen form allies: the orangutan librarian of Unseen University, furious over the stolen book of magic used to summon the dragon, and Lady Sybil Ramkin, an Wagnerian-sized aristocrat who breeds three-foot long swamp dragons, distantly related to their great cousins. This unlikely group of champions unite to vanquish the dragon before it crisps the city. Terry Pratchett recounts it all with his ironic wit and humor.

TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG, by Connie Wills

Fifty years in the future, Ned Henry, an exhausted time travel researcher, desperately needs to escape obsessive billionaire heiress Lady Schrapnell. Ever since Lady Schrapnell discovered that her great-great-great-great grandmother “Tossie” Tocelyn Mering's life had been changed forever by a visit to Coventry Cathedral she has crusaded to rebuild it down to the smallest detail. The original Cathedral was destroyed by fire in a German bombing on November 14, 1940 In her relentless drive to recreate the immense structure, she donates millions of dollars to the time time research department of Oxford and then brutally co-opts the researchers into multiple time trips scouring history for the cathedrals' lost relics.

Ned gets sent to the Victorian era to recuperate briefly, but he doesn't get any rest. After a trip up the Thames in the Jerome K. Jerome manner, he rendezvous with another time-lagged researcher.. The pair endeavor to locate Lady Schrapnell's latest quarry, the bishop's bird stump. It's a hideous wrought-iron sculpture, but it's authentic, and Lady S. must have it.

. The search for the sculpture, making sure Tossie stays on the right path to meet her future husband, and incidentally preventing the collapse of the space-time continuum never overwhelm the increasingly sleep-deprived researchers. Lady S. has scheduled a huge consecration ceremony and the pair's window for return is closing.

Willis combines a time travel Victorian comedy of manners with a love story and mystery. Her powerful narration blends all these elements into a finely polished triumphant whole

JENNIFER GOVERNMENT,by Max Barry, concluded

This book finished well, although it tends to advance the plot like some hard-boiled detective tales: when things go slack, send someone rushing into the room with a gun. In this sardonic dystopia, the Police and the NRA are now publicly-traded security companies. When it has taken the contract, the NRA grimly protects Nike with all force necessary, airstrikes included. Not your cup of tea? Go back to TMIAB.

Save as Draft

THREE MEN IN A BOAT (to say nothing of the dog), by Jerome K. Jerome

I picked up this treasure today while scavenging my sister's bookcase. The last time I read it I was in my cynical teens and didn't see the humor. I'd been meaning to get back to it for ages since I first read Connie Willis' brilliant science fiction novel *To Say Nothing of the Dog.* That book richly deserves its own review, later. I knew that Willis was referencing the Jerome K. Jerome book, but my memories of it were few.

Today I entered its pages more slowly, taking time to smile over the short chapter introductions. "Three invalids--Sufferings of George and Harris--A victim to one hundred and seven fatal maladies----We agree we are overworked and need rest----George suggests the river--Montmorency lodges an objection--Original motion carried by three to one--"

No one, of course, can possibly enjoy this ancient book, written in 1889, no one at all, unless you have ever overly enthusiastically planned a trip, squeezed a suitcase shut and latched it, only to discover a pair of shoes have been left out, got up ominously late to catch a plane or a train, suffered through a camping trip marred by rain or a hideously uncomfortable tent, or twisted a foot over a small eager dog. For the dog, of course, "to get someone to stumble over him and curse him for an hour, is his highest aim and object; and when he has succeeded in accomplishing this, his conceit becomes quite unbearable."

QUEENAN COUNTRY, by Joe Queenan

Moving away from rants, I return to High Literature. The last book I finished was *Queenan Country,* by Joe Queenan, subtitled "A Reluctant Anglophile's Pilgrimage to the Mother Country." He reports on his glorious findings and his glorious hatings with equal glee.

He loves the British for their "arch phrasing, infectious understatement, and delightful euphemisms." He also describes Paul McCarthy as "choochy," and John Lennon as "not choochy." He loathes the Pre-Raphaelite painters and Greyfriars Bobby. He advocates visiting the small town of Berkely because "you can be in and out of the village in two hours flat" and have covered "history, art, religion, regicide, tomfoolery, plague, ornithology, revolution, Norman ecclesiastical architecture, home decor, gardens, state-sanctioned sodomy, and Saxon mortuary in a single visit and can devote the rest of your trip to gambling, the theater, alcohol, or napping...it is also the site of the world's first commercial nuclear power plant. So put it on your list now."

He moans that London can't be seen in a weekend, a week, fortnight, or even a month, and advocates seeing it before age 65, because your feet can't take it and you will have to take your chances with your next reincarnation. I'm putting London back on my life-time goal list, even if I have to make it with a walker.

My angel is the centerfold

"LA gangland tour for $65."

As I click on my Yahoo homepage, that tempting headline jumps out at me, right next to the yawner "Elderly Haiti Quake Survivors Wait to Die."***

Yahoo is daring its millions of readers to satisfy their morbid curiosity by clicking on this tab. The obvious followup springs to mind: "Drive-by Shooting Adventure Ride opens at Disneyland: Johnny Depp to star in blackface role."

Running to the moral high ground, I declaim, "Isn't it bad enough to tease TV viewers with 'Six die in horrible crash--pictures at eleven.' How can the cynical media bank on tragedy as their rainmaker?"

Maybe the truth of our behavior lies in the immortal words of the J.Geils band.

My blood runs cold
My memory has just been sold
My angel is the centerfold
Angel is the centerfold

A part of me has just been ripped
The pages from my mind are stripped
Oh no, I can't deny it
Oh yea, I guess I gotta buy it!

Click.

***Donations for the elderly Haitians may be made at http://www.aarp.org/

A hearse of a different book

Who knew the world of cozy mysteries was large enough for two amateur detective morticians? The *Hearse* series by Tim Cockey stars Hitchcock "it's a family name" Sewell, from a family funeral home in Baltimore. The *Undertaking* series by Mark de Castrique, features "Burying" Barry Clayton, from fictional Gainsboro, N.C The *Hearse* was first.

Each series has its supporting cast, which de Castrique appears to have copycatted: tragic family circumstances, plucky relatives, dogs with stupid names. Hitchcock Sewell gets a kooky sidekick, his sexy ex-wife. Barry Clayton only gets a grumpy surgeon girlfriend.

In Tim Cockey's debut *The Hearse You Came In On,* Hitchcock horns his way into investigating the death of a young woman who has previously crashed a funeral service wearing a short short short white tennis dress. She claimed she wanted to plan her own funeral. Blackmail, dirty videos, police corruption, and political coverups move the story along. Hitch regards it all with wit and often tenderness.

Mark de Castrique's *Foolish Undertaking* starts well: Barry views his uncle praying in front of the funeral home. Oh, wait--he's only planting petunias. End of humor. Barry is tasked with the funeral of an honored Montagnard soldier. The Montagnards helped the U.S. in Viet Nam- this requires boring exposition. The corpse disappears. Not funny.

In the de Castrique/Barry Clayton book the suspects are nearly identical. They're now a dubious Boston detective, a famous actor, a US Senator, and... something else. But they're all ex-military, and quite similar. Each man has his share of aides, and THEY're suspects, too. The last book I read with so many nearly identical suspects was Dorothy L. Sayers' *Five Red Herrings.* I hate *Five Red Herrings.*

Eccentric Baltimore locals and locales vs. respectfully depicted Appalachian ones. Your pick.

Quck Take:JENNEFIER GOVERNMENT, Max Barry

Quick take: I've just started listening to the audiobook of *Jennifer Government,*by Max Barry. It is dark humor, wickedly funny so far. I hope it finishes as well as it has started.

From the jacket cover "The world is run by American corporations; there are no taxes; employees take the last names of the companies they work for; the Police and the NRA are publicly-traded security firms; the government can only investigate crimes it can bill for.

"Hack Nike is a Merchandising Officer who discovers an all-new way to sell sneakers. Buy Mitsui is a stockbroker with a death-wish. Billy NRA is finding out that life in a private army isn't all snappy uniforms and code names. And Jennifer Government, a legendary agent with a barcode tattoo, is a consumer watchdog with a gun."

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, a mashup book by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Another book I would heartily recommend to fans of the British and weird is PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, "by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith." This is a "mashup," a book which purports to be a collaboration between two authors, advertising itself as "the classic Regency novel now with ultraviolent zombie mayhem!" Elizabeth Bennett is a trained zombie killer, as are her sisters (she and Jane are the best, of course). The book consists of about 85% Jane Austen's words and 15% zombies, fitting better than you'd think. The later passages with Darcy slow the pace, but at other points the book exuberantly lives up to its promise.

During one of Lydia's interminable monologues about why the girls should go to the camp and get soldiers for husbands, Elizabeth fantasizes about cutting off Lydia's head with her favorite katana sword. It brightens the scene considerably.

RichAndStrange

The most important thing in this first blog is to give credit to the bloggers I admire: 1. RICH-for education with elan: lynnequist at separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/
She turns what could be a dry discussion of the differences between British and American English into a rich reward of linguistic tidbits.

The fact that she and her husband elected to name their daughter Grover should not be held against her. I have stopped wondering why parents name their children anything.

I will say that teachers of the next wave of schoolchildren will grow very tired of calling out "Ayden, Aidan, Aden, Jayden, Jaiden, J 'Den, Kaiden, Brayden," and for variation, "Payton." I'm still waiting for M'Aden, middle name Head.

2. STRANGE-Mil Millington at http://www.mil-millington.com/ This is the author of ThingsMyGirlFriendAndIhaveArguedAbout. He has turned arguments between his girlfriend and himself into internet gold, and gave this name to his first book. (not as good as the blog, in my opinion.) I haven't read his 2nd and 3rd books, but that's my laziness.

REALLY STRANGE-His Christmas post was a picture of an toilet from a decommisioned Soviet submarine. It had bizarrely twisted blue piping, and was decorated with a "sloppily pasted sprig of copyright-free holly." If you need to see this, Google mil millington xmas.

His twisted insights cannot be duplicated by me, but I admire their insightful weirdness.