seperis | books: colleen mccullough

During my increasingly driven episodes of life not work, I've been re-reading The Masters of Rome series, aka Gaius Marius right through seconds before Octavius becomes Augustus. And I continue to marvel about Gaius Julius Mary Sue Caesar and how very much I don't care because he is just that damn awesome.

ETA: In my defense, this kinda got away from me with the lists. Just for the record.

( republican rome invented the mary sue )

( final book, irritated still )

Okay, it may not seem like it, but I do recommend Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series. Each book is very long, and it has a massive cast, and people call each other cocksuckers in Latin in the middle of senatorial debates, which makes it sound very classy and awesome. And lots of random bouts of mass murder. Which makes you seriously wonder how anyone survived to the seventh book.

So I finally finished Antony and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough, which somehow manages to be even more depressing than The October Horse and that's where Caesar died and was not a good time for me. I have no idea how she managed to make this one gutting, but dear God, she really did, and this is with characters I really didn't like. I'd thought I was putting it off for that, but as it turns out, that's not why I didn't want to read it. I kind of wish I hadn't, now. I hate deathfic.

(My reactions when reading The October horse in 2005ish.)

( seriously, wtf colleen? )

A part of my adolescence ends sometime tomorrow, when I finish The October Horse by Colleen McCullough, culminating a series that I started reading when I was fourteen years old, picking up a paperback copy of The First Man in Rome at Wal-Mart. I got the last yesterday and am almost finished, with Octavian and Mark Antony joining forces and doing some really icky things to Cicero, proscribing (that concept blows my mind. I can't even wrap my mind around it), and I'm about fifty pages from teh end and it *hurts*. It's the last one.

Christ, that was over half my life ago.

But God, do I remember falling in love with Rome. And with genealogy as my chief hobby, a hobby I've sadly neglected for several years. But yes. Rome. Republican Rome, pre-Augustus, before Nero and Messalina, where the word king was anathema. It's also where I picked up my aversion to certain periods of history, because I didn't want to be *spoiled*. Beat *that* for being spoilerphobic! So today, I know how Cicero died, and yes, I knew how Caesar died, stupid Shakespeare, but now I know the names of all the men that did it. I also learned, in six books, the thousand horrific ways a man can kill another man. Cause whoa, the thing with swallowing hot coals? I just *wish* Shakespeare had imagined it.

( i love these books so much )

Quotes

If you don't send me feedback, I will sob uncontrollably for hours on end, until finally, in a fit of depression, I slash my wrists and bleed out on the bathroom floor. My death will be on your heads. Murderers
. -- Unknown, on feedback
BTS List
That's why he goes bad, you know -- all the good people hit him on the head or try to shoot him and constantly mistrust him, while there's this vast cohort of minions saying, We wouldn't hurt you, Lex, and we'll give you power and greatness and oh so much sex...
Wow. That was scary. Lex is like Jesus in the desert.
-- pricklyelf, on why Lex goes bad
LJ
Obi-Wan has a sort of desperate, pathetic patience in this movie. You can just see it in his eyes: "My padawan is a psychopath, and no one will believe me; I'm barely keeping him under control and expect to wake up any night now to find him standing over my bed with a knife!"
-- Teague, reviewing "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones"
LJ
Beth: god, why do i have so many beads?
Jenn: Because you are an addict.
Jenn: There are twelve step programs for this.
Beth: i dunno they'd work, might have to go straight for the electroshock.
Jenn: I'm not sure that helps with bead addiction.
Beth: i was thinking more to demagnitize my credit card.
-- hwmitzy and seperis, on bead addiction
AIM, 12/24/2003
I could rape a goat and it will DIE PRETTIER than they write.
-- anonymous, on terrible writing
AIM, 2/17/2004
In medical billing there is a diagnosis code for someone who commits suicide by sea anenemoe.
-- silverkyst, on wtf
AIM, 3/25/2004
Anonymous: sorry. i just wanted to tell you how much i liked you. i'd like to take this to a higher level if you're willing
Eleveninches: By higher level I hope you mean email.
-- eleveninches and anonymous, on things that are disturbing
LJ, 4/2/2004
silverkyst: I need to not be taking molecular genetics.
silverkyst: though, as a sidenote, I did learn how to eviscerate a fruit fly larvae by pulling it's mouth out by it's mouthparts today.
silverkyst: I'm just nowhere near competent in the subject material to be taking it.
Jenn: I'd like to thank you for that image.
-- silverkyst and seperis, on more wtf
AIM, 1/25/2005
You know, if obi-wan had just disciplined the boy *properly* we wouldn't be having these problems. Can't you just see yoda? "Take him in hand, you must. The true Force, you must show him."
-- Issaro, on spanking Anakin in his formative years
LJ, 3/15/2005
Aside from the fact that one person should never go near another with a penis, a bottle of body wash, and a hopeful expression...
-- Summerfling, on shower sex
LJ, 7/22/2005
It's weird, after you get used to the affection you get from a rabbit, it's like any other BDSM relationship. Only without the sex and hot chicks in leather corsets wielding floggers. You'll grow to like it.
-- revelininsanity, on my relationship with my rabbit
LJ, 2/7/2006
Smudged upon the near horizon, lapine shadows in the mist. Like a doomsday vision from Watership Down, the bunny intervention approaches.
-- cpt_untouchable, on my addition of The Fourth Bunny
LJ, 4/13/2006
Rule 3. Chemistry is kind of like bondage. Some people like it, some people like reading about or watching other people doing it, and a large number of people's reaction to actually doing the serious stuff is to recoil in horror.
-- deadlychameleon, on class
LJ, 9/1/2007
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Fan Fiction is John Cusack standing outside your house with a boombox.
-- JRDSkinner, on fanfiction
Twitter
I will unashamedly and unapologetically celebrate the joy and the warmth and the creativity of a community of people sharing something positive and beautiful and connective and if you don’t like it you are most welcome to very fuck off.
-- Michael Sheen, on Good Omens fanfic
Twitter, 6/19/2019
Adding for Mastodon.
-- Jenn, traceback
Fosstodon, 11/6/2022

yes, this is exactly as rambling as it looks

book: antony and cleopatra by colleen mccullough

So, Caesar died today.

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