Sunday, 25 January 2015

Shalee lhaih 2015: shiaghtin 04

Go here for English version. Note, this is rewritten from scratch, not a direct translation.

19oo-25oo Jerrey Geuree

Jerrey kerroo shiaghtin ny Shalee Lhaih. Shoh ny lhiah mee yn çhiaghtin shoh chaie:

Forward the Mage (Eric Flint, Richard Roach)

Cha row mee shickyr cre'n sorçh dy lioar v'ayn, agh ghow eh toshiaght dy mie myr skeeal fansee aitt. Haink ailley orrym rish y skeeal arraghey reayrtys dys druiaght yl-focklagh 'sy nah ayrn; v'eh beggan aitt, agh haink shen y ve rouyr, beggan dree er lhiam. Agh haink y bree erash dy fondagh, as cha dod mee scuirrey jeh. Ta schlei aittys ec Flint gyn ourys, gollrish Craig Shaw Gardner, agh tra ta CSG cur magh gannidaght hene cooie da cloie aitt, share lesh Flint rieughid stroshey son y chooid smoo. Ny gow shen myr oghsan; va mee mynghearey er feie ny lioar, as gearey er ard nish as reesht. Shen moylley hene, bhoy. Ta mee jeeaghym roym rish lioar elley 'sy 'traih.

Numenera (Monte Cook)

Shoh lioar reillyn da gamman cloie paart, Numenera. As she lioar 'oawragh t'ayn, nagh nee! Cha nod mee jannoo briwnys er 'syn aght cliaghtagh. 'Sy chooish shoh, ta daa varel aym. Er y derrey laue, ta anaase aym er y ghamman, as s'mie lhiam y seihll as reillyn ta Cook er soilshaghey magh. Er y laue elley, er lhiam nagh dod mee stiurey gamman jeh, son cha noddym toiggal y seihll shoh trooid as trooid. Ta'n lioar shoh foawragh, son y chooid smoo, er y fa dy vel Monte soilshaghey magh ymmodee buill 'sy teihll: caayryn, sleityn, baljyn beggey çheerey, keyljyn as ooilley shen. Ta ny coontyssyn shoh mynphoyntagh as lane dy vree. Ny yei shen, she seihll lane whaagh t'ayn (jeh yioin) as er y fa shen, er lhiam by ghoillee dou lhieeney ny barnaghyn eddyr ny buill shen, chamoo croo my chooid hene. Chreid mee hoshiaght dy row Cook jannoo ro-liauyr yn lioar shoh (as v'eh beggan dree lhaih y lane lioar duillag as duillag, agh cha nel eh jerkal rhyt shen y yannoo, s'cosoylagh), agh nish ta mee toiggal: shegin da shen y yannoo.

The Great Stone Face (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

Kiare skeealyn taitnyssagh as neuchramp. Ta aght Hawthorne foddey ass y chliaghtey nish; t'eh focklagh as meiygh. Ta'n eash ry-akin orroo dy baghtal, agh er lhiam dy row yn aght cooie da'n chooid. She skeealyn imlee t'ayn, as ad er bun firrinys rere y ghoan foslee. Cha nel mian orrym dy lhiam ram stoo ta screeuit ec Hawthorne, t'eh ro-neuchramp as ta'n aght beggan neuvyn er lhiam, agh va ny skeealyn shoh mie dy liooar my s'mie lhiat stroo Victorianagh.

Fockle s'jerree

Lhaih mee 3 lioaryn, va 151 yn çhiaghtin shoh chaie, myr shen ta 148 faagit dou nish.


English version

19th-25th January

The end of week four of the Reading Project. Here's what I've read this week:

Forward the Mage (Eric Flint, Richard Roach)

I wasn't sure what I was expecting - a hazard of gathering ebooks sometimes - but Flint soon drew me into this humorous fantasy story. I was much disgruntled and disappointed by a viewpoint switch, which took me from an entrancingly novel protagonist to a deeply verbose and rather tiresome character. While this is deliberate and for comic effect, I felt like it was overdone and the story was becoming dull. Luckily, from the next switch vim and vigour returned, and never left again. Flint's writing here resembled my old favourite Craig Shaw Gardner, but while CSG produces pure slapstick farce, Flint offers something less overtly ludicrous. I was grinning through most of my read, and even laughed out loud not a few times. Praise indeed. I hope he'll get round to producing a sequel.

Numenera (Monte Cook)

This is the manual for a roleplaying game. It's a huge book, and RPGs don't lend themselves to the usual literary analysis. In this case, my opinion of it as a game is rather split. On the one hand, I'm intrigued by this game and its world, both from reading it and from my other exposure to it. On the other hand, I really don't feel I could confidently run a game in this system, because I don't have a holistic grasp of the world. The main reason for the book's size is that Cook has included a sprawling gazetteer of the world, covering in detail dozens of cities, towns, mountains, ruins, forests and their inhabitants. Although reading through the details got rather dry (in fairness, it's not a novel, it's a roleplaying tool), most of it was creative and full of attractive strangeness. The problem is that the very strangeness and disjointedness that Cook emphasises makes it nigh-impossible for me to think how I'd fill in the blanks between, let alone come up with my own content. I now realise that including all that detail wasn't just the urge to get his creation down on paper, but a bit of a necessity.

The Great Stone Face (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

A simple, pleasant set of four stories. Hawthorne's style is definitely out of fashion now, verbose and rather sentimental, but although these now seem quite dated, I found they worked well for these stories. They're simple, almost humble stories, all based loosely on some real thing or event. I don't think I'd want to read a lot of his work, as it feels simplistic and the style now grates a bit, but these were fine.

Afterword

I read 3 books, I had 151 last week, so 148 are left over.

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