it is not so much a monday as a friday minus five

[seperis]

I did not believe News of the World hacking cellphones, of all things, would actually, y'know, be treated as a terrifyingly big deal.The more you know.

I mean, it's not that I assume a lot of moral outrage is causing the sudden respect for the law and non-dickery--Murdoch hatred combined with CYA is magic--but I'll take the cynical view for a few of the results.

Also, Concentrating Too Much Media Power == Abuse!, which is good to know. Had no idea monopolies or oligarchies are ripe for abuse. Don't say it's so.

In other news--god, I have none, work is evil. Send help. Or recommendations for historical fiction as good as Sharon Kay Penman's The Sunne in Splendour (That may not be possible, I know, but hope springs eternal).

Comments

[dine]

unfortunately, there really isn't much out there as good as The Sunne in Splendour (except for SKP's other titles; if you've not already read them, those should meet your needs)

[seperis]

*depressed* I read Here be Dragons and got through half the next one before near-hysteria took over, because I was way too invested in the Welsh royal line at that point. *shivers*

[vae]

Hacking cellphones, potentially deleting voicemail messages and therefore interfering with a criminal investigation would be the starting point... and while the British public is apparently fine with celebrities and politicians phones being hacked, start doing that to child murder victims and their families and people get up in arms. The extent of the police bribery and cover-ups that are being revealed in relation to it is more of a big deal.

Historical fiction: have you read Diana Norman's The Vizard Mask? 17th century, players, playwrights, plague, Puritans, peasants' uprisings, prisons, and Aphra Behn. (Who doesn't begin with a P but is still remarkably wonderful.)

[aella_irene]

And, by Diana Norman under her pen name of Ariana Franklin, the Mistress of the Art of Death series, which has a historically accurate female medical examiner FTW.

(She died earlier this year, alas.)

[vae]

Oh no! I wasn't aware of that, how very sad. It's been a terrible year for losing excellent authors.

Thanks for the info about Ariana Franklin, I'll go chase those down.

[aella_irene]

Also, more historical fantasy, John M Ford`s The Dragon Waiting, which has vampires, and Richard III. And Cecily, Duchess of York, being awesome.

[legionseagle]

Plus: death of a whistleblower on the eve of a parliamentary enquiry and the mysterious discovery of a bag containg a cell-phone, a laptop and notes in a bin next to Rebekah Brook's flat, which Mr Brooks attempts to retrieve on the basis that it's a) his; and b) got in the bin by accident?

[seperis]

Ooh, just found the whistleblower one--where is the one about the bag?

[legionseagle]

This may be the apparently-modelled-on-scene-from-duff-cop-show moment you're looking for

[grey_bard]

Roberta Gellis's The Dragon and the Rose!

Henry VII and his mother scheme to take over England, which, eventually, they do. And are awesomely scheming. This is gone into in great and fun detail.

Meanwhile, he hooks up with his wife as a political thing. But he's so calculating and repressed and she's so romantic, that there are a lot of fundamental misunderstandings... for the good!

For example, he sees how many affairs members of her family have, and figures that obviously she must have an inherited a vast sexual appetite which it is his DUTY to the KINGDOM to satisfy regularly. Clearly! In order to avoid scandal! Meanwhile she's like lalalala sex, god I hope my mother never comes to this part of the palace, she's such a downer.

And no, it doesn't dump on Richard III too much, it's actually somewhat sympathetic in an "He's off screen the whole time, Henry never met him and is his opponent and thus always believes the worst" sort of way.

It's currently available in super-cheap ebook from Baen.

[domarzione]

Oh, man, I love The Sun in Splendour liek woah. I went on a major (major) Richard III kick starting in high school and here was actual fiction with him as the protagonist! (Yes, yes, there is the Josephine Tey novel, but he's just vindicated there, not the hero.)

I went through a lot of the Jean Plaidy books (that's the name Penman's novels were published under) in high school. A lot.

I liked the Sharan Newman 'Catherine Levendeur' books, at least the first handful, but those are pretty much in my demographic and educational wheelhouse: she's the French Catholic daughter of a crypto-Jew (she doesn't know and the revelation shatters her family) who is a student of Heloise (yes, that one) in a convent and ends up solving a mystery with a student of the visiting Abelard. They eventually get married and continue to solve crimes, but there's a decent amount of 'it ain't that easy' (death of children, religious issues, mistrust of foreigners -- her husband's a Saxon) and they were fun.

[lazulisong]

The uhhh Game of Kings series by Dorothy Dunnett I think it is. Plots revolving around Mary Queen of Scots and like. I don't even know. James Bond as a Scottish dude in the 16th century.

[out_there]

it is not so much a monday as a friday minus five

I love that idea. It makes me feel much better about Mondays.

Had no idea monopolies or oligarchies are ripe for abuse. Don't say it's so.

And sarcasm. I also love sarcasm.

[califmole.livejournal.com]

For historical fiction, Gillian Bradshaw is not to be missed. Two of my favorites are THE BEACON AT ALEXANDRIA and ISLAND OF GHOSTS, both of which would make my desert island reading list.

[megdalina.livejournal.com]

For me, historical fiction = Dorothy Dunnet. The Lymond Chronicle and Niccolo Rising are both fantastic series.

[clari-clyde.livejournal.com]

I did not believe News of the World hacking cellphones, of all things, would actually, y'know, be treated as a terrifyingly big deal.

Maybe because it wasn’t until people learned that they’d hacked into the phone of a murder victim? Hacking the phones of celebrities behaving badly is one thing—and they’ve been complaining for eternity about being spied on—but hacking phones of dead people is another. But wait, aren’t celebrities people too?

I too am surprised by all the outrage but then I shouldn’t be. It’s kinda like how no one cares about animal rights and environmentalism until cute fuzzy animals are hurt while all along no one has cared about, oh . . . , fruit flies in test tubes or vultures on the verge going extinct. But wait, fruit flies can feel pain too and vultures are part of the environment too. Not to make light of bunnies painfully losing their eyesight or Bambi no longer having a home; except the hypocrisy and the having of double standards and does make light of it all.

(Then again, I am also surprised that people are surprised that a Murdoch company did this. Because he holds Fox to such high journalistic standards, hm?)



Also, Concentrating Too Much Media Power == Abuse!, which is good to know. Had no idea monopolies or oligarchies are ripe for abuse. Don't say it's so.

Monopsonies and oligopsonies are bad too, everyone forgets about these! I think if AOL/Huffington had their way, they’d be a monopsony. I don’t think they have the leverage or credibility (anymore) to position themselves as such, not with their reputation devolving into content mill. Would you sell anything you write to them?

But yeah, I think being the single buyer of blog content was their endgame. Though, I’m sure they thought they’d be good guys for it. Going on past interviews, Arianna definitely had a vision of HuffPo being the bloggers’ soapbox.

[kityye.livejournal.com]

For historical fiction, I turn to Diana Gabaldon's Lord Grey books or Outlander series.