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Archive for the ‘Violence’ Category

Brian Level, Ryan Ferrier, Kate Sherron, Crank!–Silk Hills (2022)

Posted in Brian Level, Crank!, Death, Deer, Drugs, Graphic Novel, Guns, Huh?, Humiliation, Kate Sherron, Moths, Oni Press, Ryan Ferrier, The X Files, Violence, Yuck! on May 29, 2023| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: May 9, 2023] Silk Hills

I haven’t been reading that many graphic novels lately.  My daughter made the excellent point that our local library has an excellent graphic novel collection but that it hasn’t been updated in quite a while.  So I was pleased t o see this book at work, especially since it was from Oni Press, a reliably weird publisher.

I don’t know any of the contributors: authors Brian Level (has written for Star Wars and Marvel) and Ryan Ferrier (has written lots of indie books and written for Marvel and DC).  Crank! is Christopher Crank who has done lettering for just about everyone.  Kate Sherron has a very distinctive visual style (which I see a lot of people don’t like).  I thought it was pretty cool and unusual–it reminded me a bit of Jeff Lemire’s style.

I have been listening to a book of short stories from The X-Files, and this book immediately made me think of the X-Files.  It’s also the kind of story that either should have been longer or should have had fewer hallucinatory passages and had more explanatory pages.

Beth Wills is a former Marine turned private investigator.  She lives in New York City but is sent to an unnamed rural community called Silk Hills.  It must be pretty far, as a gas station attendant remarks on her New York plates, but we don’t know exactly where Silk Hills is.

I enjoyed the interactions with Wills and the gas station attendant also a former military man (out six years). (more…)

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Lucy Ellmann–Things are Against Us (2021)

Posted in Absolutely Fabulous, Agatha Christie, Alfred Hitchcock, E.L. Doctorow, Essays, Femicide, Feminism, Greta Thunberg, Guns, Jane Austen, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lucy Ellmann, Mary Ellmann, Murder, Pizza, Raymond Chandler, Sex, Sexism, Sherlock Holmes, Violence, Virginia Woolf on March 15, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[READ: March 10, 2021] Things Are Against Us

I loved Ellmann’s book Ducks, Newburyport so much that I had intended to read all of her books.

So I’ve gone back and read some of her previous novels.  Which I found to be…okay.  They were mildly amusing with some very personal diatribes thrown in to put some passion into these otherwise comic novels.

Then I saw that she had a recent collection of essays, which I thought might be really interesting.

I agree about 95% with everything Ellmann says in this book.  And yet I hated this book more than almost anything I’ve read recently.  And I think I’m not going to bother reading the other novels that I haven’t read yet, since the other two weren’t that great anyhow.

Ellmann’s style in these essays is so unpleasant, so superior and self-righteous, so… (and I hate to use this word because of the anti-feminist implications of it but it is definitionally accurate) strident, that I almost didn’t finish most of the essays (I forced my way through to the end of all of them).  Strident, btw: “presenting a point of view, especially a controversial one, in an excessively and unpleasantly forceful way.  I mean, that is this book to a T.”

In the past, strident women have been very important to many movements.  But hen your arguments are so scattershot, it’s hard for your stridency to be a positive force.

“Things Are Against Us”
In this essay Ellmann all caps the word THINGS every time she writes it.  On the first page (which is half a page not including the title), THINGS appears over 30 times.  The tone is kind of amusing–about how things get in our way and cause us trouble: Things slip out of your hand; things trip you, things break.  Then each following paragraph gets more specific.  Clothes tear, socks don’t stay up.  Matches won’t light, water bottles spill. Then she gets into the body.  In her novel Doctors & Nurses she lists 12 pages of bodily ailments.  So there’s not much new here.  And there’s no real point.  It doesn’t end with any grand idea.  It just stops. (more…)

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Jennifer Estep–Kill the Queen (2018) [audiobook 2018] (Crown of Shards #1)

Posted in Assassination, Audiobooks, Death, Fantasy, Jennifer Estep, Lauren Fortgang, Magic, Revenge, Romance, Supernatural, Trilogy, Unfinished series, Violence on February 2, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: February 2023] Kill the Queen

One of the fun things about the Chirp audiobook app is that it is constantly recommending books by authors that i have never heard of.  Since I have learned that I really enjoy listening to genres that I don’t especially enjoy reading, I ‘ve been thrilled with all of the unknown (to me) authors that I’m now exposed to.

I didn’t know anything about Jennifer Estep, but the blurb seemed promising.  And, yes, there was something cool about the cover–a medieval looking story but the protagonist is in leather pants.  I know–don’t judge, etc.  But whatever, I gave it a try.

The one bad thing about audio books is you don’t know how certain words are written.  The narrator (Lauren Fortgang–absolutely excellent with a great diversity of voices at her disposal) kept saying Bolognian.  But I now see that it is written Bellonan,  Oh well, no harm.

As the book opens we meet Evie.  Her parents were once King and Queen.  But they were killed when she was young and she had been orphaned and taken in by the Bellonan people.  She was more or less relegated to the level of hanger-on.  Since then, she has been dismissed and even mocked by her more prominent cousins (Evie is 17th in line for the throne now).

She spends her time as an apprentice to a metalsmith.

As mentioned, there’s some anachronism about this story.  It is fantasy with the whole swords and gladiators thing running through the story.  There is also magic.  I rather like the way the magic is presented in the book.  Certain people have it.  Certain people can accentuate it with magical objects.  But some people have none or, as in the case of Evie, they are mutts and their magic is diluted. (more…)

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Collectibles–edited by Lawrence Block (2021)

Posted in Alex Segura, Books about writers, Bookstores, Cars, David Rachels, Dennis Lehane, Dip-in Books, Elaine Kagan, Fleetwood Mac, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Janice Eidus, Joe R. Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, Judas Priest, Kasey Lansdale, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Lawrence Block, Lee Goldberg, Murder, Otto Penzler, Revenge, Rob Hart, S.A. Cosby, S.J. Rozan, Sex, Short Story, Supernatural, Superstitions, Surreal, Violence, Yuck! on November 30, 2022| Leave a Comment »

 

SOUNDTRACK: FLEETWOOD MAC-“The Green Manalishi (With the Two Pronged Crown)” (1969).

I know this song from Judas Priest, who made a killer cover that they played for years.  Rob Halford’s voice on the song (in their live version from 1976) is incredible.

I didn’t even know there was an “original” until a decade or so ago.  It seemed out of character that Judas Priest would cover a trippy Fleetwood Mac song (of course they also covered Joan Baez, so…).  But wow, this song is a trip.

I mean, the lyrics alone are the stuff of legend at this point.  There’s dozens of places where you can read about the song.  Here’s a few paragraphs from Uncle Stylus.

Peter Green said it’s a song about the corrupting influence of money, which he equated with the devil. In 1969, the huge success of Fleetwood Mac had brought them a considerable income and Green had agreed with the band that they would would give it all to charity. One can imagine that “morning after” moment when he demanded they made good on their idealistic rush of blood. A massive quarrel ensued, and Green never forgave the other bandmembers for reneging on the idea and claimed that this was what inspired the song.

Manalishi is a word that Peter Green made up for the song. The sound of it rolling around the tongue is exotic and menacing, suffused with the mystery of demons and gremlins from a medieval Italian dark night.

Listening now it’s clear that he was really, whether consciously or unconsciously, telling us about his depressive schizophrenia and even the dark persona unleashed within him when he took certain drugs, the “green” of the manalishi being Green himself. It reads like the beginning of a story by Edgar Allan Poe.

The Judas Priest cover doesn’t really follow the original all that much (the ending wailing is so much cooler the way Halford does it).  But the riff here is pretty spectacular (understandable why they’d want to cover it).  Also, it was a big hit in England when it came out, so it’s not like the band was crate-digging for rarities.  I had just never heard of it.

There is something some sinister about the slow menace of the Fleetwood Mac version.  It’s incredible to think that this is the same band who put out Rumours (although really it isn’t, but whatever).

Check out the live from Boston version for some real heaviness.  And marvel that this weird song was a hit.

[READ: November 2022] Collectibles

Evidently Lawrence Block has created several of these anthologies all loosely based around a theme.  This is the first one I’ve read, although I see another one called Playing Games is on the horizon.

This collection is about collectibles.  Most but not all of the stories are crime or mystery based.  A couple have a touch of the supernatural as well.  The term “collectible” is pretty broadly defined from one story to the next, but it’s a decent prompt to let you know what you’re getting.

Lawrence Block – The Elephant in the Living Room (An Introduction)
This is an essay about the book which includes an amusing story about Lawrence’s Uncle Jerry who ha a collection of giraffes.  There were presently none in the collection because he hadn’t found one up to his standards. (more…)

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Lindsay Buroker–Battle Bond [Death Before Dragons #2] (2020) [audiobook 2020]

Posted in Adventure, Audiobooks, Death, Dragons, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Lindsay Buroker, Magic, Morality, Murder, Supernatural, Tigers, Urban fantasy, Vampires, Violence, Vivienne Leheny, Werewolves on September 4, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: September 2023] Battle Bond

I had listened to a couple of different Buroker stories before getting to this second book in this series.

But as soon I started this one, Vivienne Leheny’s narration dragged me back in.  I could listen to just about anything she reads.

So this book picks up where the previous one left off.  Val Thorvald is a 40 -something elf/human assassin.  The elf part helps her heal faster than humans, but she is just as flawed as any other human (some critics say far more flawed).  She is still driving the government loaner Jeep that she requisitioned after Zav (before she got to know him) threw her old Jeep into the upper branches of a very tall tree.

Val has an ex-husband and daughter.  She has left them so that they will be safe.  Her ex-husband kind of understands, but her daughter doesn’t want anything to do with her.  This gives her much angst.

Val has no real friends, so she relies on her magical tiger companion, Sindari, for companionship and some great banter (he knows what’s what).  She “won” Sindari in a battle.  I enjoyed that she is ethically conflicted about “owning” a tiger, but Sindari seems to like her, so I guess it’s okay.  Sindari lives in some other realm but comes when she calls him through a magical charm.

Most of the other characters have returned: Val’s mom is a cool hippie (who once married an elf) with a dog and a guy who lives in a trailer on her property.  That would be Dimitri, a large, imposing dude who make delicate wood works (which can also be used as defensive weapons).  There’s also Zultan a vampire with a massive YouTube presence.  And then there’s Nin, a woman who runs a small food truck and makes magical weapons in her spare time. She’s awesome.  And Val’s boss Willard is still around, providing sage wisdom, hi tech help and other good things.  Willard is still recovering from the magical cancer that the dark elves infected her with.

But this story focuses on dragons.

A dragon, Dob, has come to Earth to harass Zav.   It turns out there’s a power struggle on the home world and Zav’s family has been in charge of things for a long time.  This dragon hopes to prove that Zav is not behaving according to dragon standards.  He is also underhanded and violent–unafraid to harm anyone.  He has kidnapped children. And hikers.  By the middle of the book he has taken over a large but remote area of the wilderness.

The politics of Zav’s homeworld are unfolding in  the story and more will clearly be revealed as the stories progress.  It’s good that Buroker doesn’t throw a ton of world building at us, but gives us glimpses of things.

There are dark elves causing trouble in this book as well.  This involves Nin.  They say that her weapons are encroaching on her business.  Translation: her weapons are much better than theirs but there are more of them to bully an independent woman.  Val helps her.  The discussion of payment is pretty hilarious with Val not wanting to take money but Nin, being a businesswoman, insisting on paying something (which turns out to be food).

The relationship between Val and Zav is expanding (I wish I didn’t accidentally hear a spoiler when I listened to another series) and the humor between them is getting much funnier.  Zav brought Val a poster of himself for Val to practice her axe throwing and Val continues to try to teach him contemporary slang–I love the way Leheny deals with these section–her inflections are perfect.

There’s some really cool moments in the story as well–Val rescuing the children in an abandoned building.  Val and her friends getting stuck under a house of evil cat-shifting humans.  They are memorable and you can really visualize the scenes.

The ending of the story is pretty dramatic.  Val winds up crossing a line (in Zav’s mind) and it instantly puts friction between them.  And what she has done puts her own life in danger.

Buroker must spend all of her time writing as all of these items have come out in roughly the last fifteen years.  I’m not going to listen to everything she’s written I don’t think, but here’s what I’ve started.

Death Before Dragons
almost all written in 2020!

  • Mist and Magic — Book 0.5
  • Sinister Magic — Book 1
  • Battle Bond — Book 2
  • Tangled Truths — Book 3
  • Elven Doom — Book 4
  • The Forbidden Ground — Book 4.5
  • False Security — Book 5
  • Storm Forged — Book 6
  • The Box — Book 6.5
  • Secrets of the Sword I – Book 7
  • Secrets of the Sword II – Book 8
  • Gifts — Book 8.5
  • Secrets of the Sword III – Book 9

 

 Legacy of Magic
1-3 written in 2022, the rest in 2023
this is a spinoff series set
in Death Before Dragons world.
It features a new heroine with a new mystery
and threat that she must deal with, but
it also brings back some of the
characters from the original series.

  • Hammered — Book 1
  • Betrayed — Book 2
  • Trolled — Book 3
  • Tested — Book 4
  • Wrenched — Book 5
  • Fused — Book 6
  • Legacy of Magic Short Stories — Newsletter bonus
  • Wanted — Book 7
  • Cursed — Book 8
 Tracking Trouble
2023-2024 (#5 not out yet)
Another urban fantasy series set in my Death Before Dragons and Legacy of Magic world!

  • Marked by Magic — Book 1
  • Bound by Blood — Book 2
  • Driven by Destiny — Book 3
  • A Goblin Christmas — Book 3.5
  • Pursued by Peril — Book 4
  • Tested by Temptation — Book 5

 

Key to this Linday Buroker audio-verse
Red means I’ve listened to it
Green means I’ve downloaded it
Blue means it’s available on Chirp
Black means it’s not available or is a short book

Dragon Gate
2021-2022
(these books are HUGE)

  • Kingdoms at War — Book 1
  • Art of the Hunt — Book 2
  • Broken by Magic — Book 3
  • Chosen for Power — Book 4
  • Sky on Fire — Book 5
  • Orbs of Wisdom — Book 6

 

 A Witch in Wolf Wood
2021-2022
Set in the made-up town of Bellrock, Washington
bookish introvert heroines and surly werewolf heroes.

  • Mind Over Magic — Book 1
  • Spell Hound — Book 2
  • Any Witch Way — Book 3
  • Hoot and Howler — Book 3.5
  • Moment of Tooth — Book 4
  • Charmed and Dangerous — Book 5
 Agents of the Crown
2018

  • Eye of Truth–— Book 1
  • Blood Ties — Book 2
  • Duty Bound — Book 3
  • Elven Fury — Book 4
  • Dragon Tear — Book 5

Haven’t decided on these series yet

Swords & Salt [3]
2013

  • A Question of Honor— Book 1
  • Labyrinths of the Heart— Book 2
  • Death from Below— Book 3
 Chains of Honor [4]
2015
You may want to start with the Chains of Honor Prequels,
three novellas that were originally published as the Swords & Salt series.

  • Warrior Mage — Book 1
  • Snake Heart — Book 2
  • Assassin’s Bond — Book 3
  • Great Chief — Book 4

she also has these series:

The Emperor’s Edge Series (9 primary works).

Forgotten Ages /Encrypted series, set in the same world, approximately eighteen years earlier.  (2 primary works)  PLUS:

  • Swords & Salt series, set in the same world, after the events of EE.
  • Chains of Honor series , set in the same world (Nurian Empire)

also

Dragon Blood Series  (8 primary works)

Heritage of Power (5 primary works) is a sequel a few years after this series

AND THESE SCI-FI SERIES

Fallen Empire Series (8 primary works) SCI-FI

  • Fractured Stars Series (1 book, three stories) stand alone but in this same world

Sky Full of Stars (3 primary works)  sequel

Fallen Empire Universe Series (13 books for kindle only) same world

also

Star Kingdom Series (10 primary works) SCI-FI

AND THESE STEAMPUNK SERIES

Flash Gold Chronicles Series (5 novellas)

AND THIS SERIES TOO

Rust & Relics Series (2.5 books)

 

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Stuart Gibbs–Charlie Thorne and the Curse of Cleopatra [Charlie Thorne #3] (2022)

Posted in Adventure, Charles Darwin, Children's Books, Cleopatra, Death, Feminism, History, Julius Caesar, Robbery, Scientists, Smarty Pants, Stacy Schiff, Violence on July 4, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: Hiatus.

[READ: July 4, 2022] Charlie Thorne and the Curse of Cleopatra

This is the third book in the Charlie Thorne series.  And there will clearly be a fourth.

Sarah brought this home and was very excited about it.  I was pretty excited to read it as well.  Our excitement was justified, because Stuart Gibbs has created a great heroine, an intriguing mystery and a thoughtful historical quest.

One of the things I liked best about this book was the historical information about Cleopatra.  We all know all about Cleopatra.  Except  that everything we know is incorrect!  The course of (male) history has been very unkind to Cleopatra–she was an amazing woman and ruler and has been historically described as little more than an exotic temptress.

In the acknowledgements, Gibbs, heaps praise on the book Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff.  I have just checked out the book and the first chapter is fantastic.

The Prologue is set in Alexandria, Egypt in 30 BC.  Cleopatra was being held prisoner by Octavian–Julius Caesar’s nephew.  Cleopatra and her husband Mark Antony were united in a war against Octavian–but they had lost.

Octavian lied about how he would treat Cleopatra after Mark Antony’s death.  She discovered this and was preemptive about her own fate.  She did not kill herself with an asp–rather, she drank poison and burned down her mausoleum.  And her great treasure was destroyed wit her.

Staying in Egypt, the book shifts to the present day.  At the end of the last book Charlie has escaped from the CIA as well as the Mossad, the national intelligence agency of Israel.

Now she is sneaking into a party in Giza, Egypt, at the penthouse of Ahmet Shah, the oldest son of a wealthy shipping magnate.  Ahmet has a ton of security because he has a ton of expensive things in his house.  But one thing that Charlie wants is not expensive–it is information. (more…)

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Terry Pratchett–The Truth (2000) [Discworld #25] [Ankh-Morpork story, not about the Watch]

Posted in Altogether Andrews, Anachronisms, Angua von Überwald, Arnold Sideways, Carrot Ironfoundersson, Cheery Littlebottom, Coffin Henry, Death, Detritus, Discworld, Dogs, Dorfl, Dwarfs, Foul Ol' Ron, Fred Colon, Funny (ha ha), Golems, Guns, Lady Sybil Ramkin, Lord Vetinari, Magic, Newspapers, Nobby Nobbs, Sacharissa Cripslock, Samuel Vimes, Terry Pratchett, The Duck Man, The Librarian, The Watch, Vampires, Violence, Werewolves, William de Worde, Wizards on June 5, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: April 2022] The Truth

This story is set in Ankh-Morpork but it’s not about the Watch.  Or Lord Vetenari.  Well, it sort of is about both of them, but not really.

This story is about The Truth.  And also about a new character called William de Worde.  William is a black sheep of a famous and wealthy Ankh-Morpork family.  He has always been interested in writing and in finding the truth.

His job was to write an occasional message to various important figures around the Disc with information about what’s going on in Ankh-Morpork.  He quickly learned that he could write his message, have the Engraver’s guild print multiple copies and just change a few things for each one.  This made him a lot more money.

Then there was big news in Ankh-Morpork–the arrival of movable type from the dwarfs, particularly Gunilla Goodmountain.

William, through a series of events, inadvertently becomes the spokesperson for the movable type (even though he had nothing to do with it) and starts a newspaper. The paper is supposed to be named Ankh-Morpork Items but they get the type wrong and it became The Ankh-Morpork Times.

He is assisted by the dwarfs and Sacharissa Cripslock–a fiery reporter who proves very useful. (more…)

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Terry Pratchett–The Fifth Elephant (1999) [Discworld #24] [Watch #5]

Posted in Anachronisms, Angua von Überwald, Carrot Ironfoundersson, Cheery Littlebottom, Death, Detritus, Discworld, Dorfl, Dwarfs, Fred Colon, Funny (ha ha), Gender, Lady Sybil Ramkin, Lord Vetinari, Magic, Nobby Nobbs, Political Humor, Politicians, Samuel Vimes, Technology, Terry Pratchett, The Watch, Vampires, Violence, Werewolves, Wizards on June 4, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: April 2022] The Fifth Elephant

This is a story of Ankh-Morpork and progress.  Ankh-Morpork has just introduced a series of clacks–semaphore towers–to provide quick communication between distant places.  It’s expensive, but businesses in the know are all getting c-mail addresses.

Incidentally, the movie The Fifth Element came out in 1997 and was clearly an inspiration for the title–although very little about that film falls into place here.  Rather, the fifth elephant of the title is believes to have been one of the elephants who held up the world but who fell to the Disc and caused craters of fat deposits that are found underground in Uberwald (which produces the best fat on the disc).  Fat deposits are a very valuable commodity.

Uberwald factors heavily in this story.  Ankh-Morpork now has the largest dwarf city on the Disc.  And the progressive dwarfs in Ankh-Morpork are able to sway elections back home–where the more traditional dwarfs (deep down dwarfs) don’t think highly of the dwarfs who have left.

An upcoming election for Dwarf king was swayed by the Ankh-Morpork contingent and Rhys Rhysson, a progressive dwarf is set to become King.  But this has made many old school dwarfs very unhappy and rumors of an internal war start brewing. (more…)

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Terry Pratchett–Carpe Jugulum (1998) [Discworld #23] [Witches #6]

Posted in Agnes Nitt, Bela de Magpyr, Cook Book, Count de Magpyr, Death, Death, Discworld, Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre, Fairy Tales, Funny (ha ha), Granny Weatherwax, King Verence, Lacrimosa de Magpyr, Magic, Magrat Garlick, Nanny Ogg, Terry Pratchett, Unfinished series, Violence, Vlad de Magpyr, Witches on June 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: March 2022] Carpe Jugulum

It’s so hard to believe that Carpe Jugulum (Discworld book #23 of 41) is the last one to feature the Witches! Especially since it is quite clearly about vampires.  Actually, other books feature Granny Weatherwax (the Tiffany Aching books feature her a lot), but it’s the last one that features the classic trio of witches.

Queen Magrat and King Verence have figured out the whole bedroom thing (Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax weren’t sure they’d every actually figure it out) and are pleased to announce their first child–a girl.

The King has invited everyone to their naming ceremony.  That includes the vampires from Uberwald.

Since the vampires have been invited they are pretty much free to do as they want.  It turns out that they are quite clear about their plans–they are going to move into Lancre Castle and basically turn all of the humans into their cattle (as they have done in Uberwald).  But because of a kind of hypnotism, no one is upset by this–nor do they seem to fully get what the threats represent. (more…)

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Terry Pratchett–Jingo (1997) [Discworld #21] [Watch #4]

Posted in Anachronisms, Angua von Überwald, Carrot Ironfoundersson, Cheery Littlebottom, Death, Detritus, Discworld, Dorfl, Dwarfs, Fred Colon, Funny (ha ha), Golems, Guns, Lady Sybil Ramkin, Leonard of Quirm, Lord Vetinari, Magic, Nobby Nobbs, Racism, Samuel Vimes, Terry Pratchett, The Librarian, The Watch, Vampires, Violence, Werewolves on June 1, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: March 2022] Jingo

With a title like Jingo, you know that Terry Pratchett isn’t holding back.  And indeed, this is a story about two countries fighting each other over disputed territory–and the unenlightened attitudes that people have about “foreigners.”

What is great about Pratchett is how much he is able to get his point across without being preachy.  Some of the unenlightened characters say offensive things, but they are quickly discoruaged from such attitudes–not with bludgeoning and hysteria, but with rational comments.  It’s very well done.

But what causes this trouble?  Well, out of nowhere, an island has surfaced.  The island of Leshp was submerged forever, and suddenly, it floated to the surface amid two fishermen.  Solid Jackson of Ankh-Morpork (and his long-suffering son) and Greasy Arif from Al-Khali, the Klatchian capital.  They often fought over their prey (the Curious Squid), because they sailed the same waters that were between the two countries.

While this is going on, diplomatic business is occurring in Ankh-Morpork.  The prince of Klatch, Khufurah, is in Ankh-Morpork to receive an honorary degree (Doctorum Adamus cum Flabello Dulci) in Sweet Fanny Adams.

Hostilities between A-M and Klatch are high.

Several leaders of the city are there to complain to Lord Vetenari about Klatch.  Watch Captain Sam Vimes is there to add a level head and sarcasm.  When someone complains that Klatch wouldn’t accept ten boatloads of cabbages, Vimes says out loud to himself “everyone knows caterpillars add to the flavor” and later “Meat is at its best when it’s going green.”

And of course, the Patrician knows his way around diplomacy: “it is no longer considered…nice…to send a warship … to show Johnny Foreigner the error of his ways.”

Later, the Prince meets with Vimes and asks him about the word he’s heard shouted at him: “towelhead.” (more…)

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