Paladins review and holiday riding
Feb. 4th, 2008 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearJoel Rosenberg was one of my favourite authors as a teenager - I loved his Guardians of the Flame series and read it over and over again, even though its literary merits are not that extensive. So, when I discovered more recent works by Rosenberg, I leapt at the opportunity to consume them. Paladins has a rather ridiculous premise of knights wielding swords that contain the souls either of saints or really evil people (such as Genghis Kahn). By far the most annoying thing about the book, however, is the fact that it hasn't been proofread very well. It's littered with typos, and the narrative is frequently interrupted by the author using the same word or phrase twice within the same paragraph.
Still, the characters are strong, the story is compelling, and there's enough of interest to look past the cosmetic problems, irritating though they are. I was rather disappointed when my favourite character got horribly killed during the climax, and the endings for the other characters were also somewhat unsatisfactory in various way, but overall it was a good read.
I got whisked away on a rather lovely surprise trip this past weekend - to Lynch Lodge in Alwalton, near Peterborough. Rather cold, but very cool. As part of the surprise, a hack at a nearby stable had been arranged for me on Sunday morning. As most stables do, they gave me a very steady cob-type to ride - he was called Toby VIII, was in his mid-twenties, and my heart sank when I was told I would need grass reins and a stick to stop him munching his way around the trail. Still, as often happens with me on these kinds of rides, Toby surprised not only me and the stable girl accompanying me, but also probably himself, when he went slightly crazy on the second canter stretch, out-stripping the youthful, sprightly, Anglo-Arab lead horse and attempting to disappear across the fields. I felt obliged to rein him in as quickly as possible, despite my inevitable desire just to let him go, but it was still a fun ride overall.
Still, the characters are strong, the story is compelling, and there's enough of interest to look past the cosmetic problems, irritating though they are. I was rather disappointed when my favourite character got horribly killed during the climax, and the endings for the other characters were also somewhat unsatisfactory in various way, but overall it was a good read.
I got whisked away on a rather lovely surprise trip this past weekend - to Lynch Lodge in Alwalton, near Peterborough. Rather cold, but very cool. As part of the surprise, a hack at a nearby stable had been arranged for me on Sunday morning. As most stables do, they gave me a very steady cob-type to ride - he was called Toby VIII, was in his mid-twenties, and my heart sank when I was told I would need grass reins and a stick to stop him munching his way around the trail. Still, as often happens with me on these kinds of rides, Toby surprised not only me and the stable girl accompanying me, but also probably himself, when he went slightly crazy on the second canter stretch, out-stripping the youthful, sprightly, Anglo-Arab lead horse and attempting to disappear across the fields. I felt obliged to rein him in as quickly as possible, despite my inevitable desire just to let him go, but it was still a fun ride overall.
