Torchwood began as a more adult spinoff of Doctor Who, but came into its own right in its third season, the five-part mini-series, Children of Earth.

One day, all the children of Earth freeze up and announce, “we are coming” over and over, before carrying on unawares. The aliens known as the 456 are announcing themselves. What soon becomes apparent to the audience is that the British government had dealings once before with the 456 back in 1965—and they don’t want it to be known. They attempt to destroy the Torchwood team, blowing up the immortal Captain Jack Harkness, to keep …continue.

For four thousand years, the gods have dwelt in human form amongst the people of Myrillia, rooted to the very land. When the goddess Meeryn is found murdered and the disgraced Shad­owknight Tylar de Noche is found at her side, mirac­u­lous­ly healed of his maiming, he is accused of being the godslayer. He escapes and uncovers a dark conspiracy of corruption and evil.

As an exercise in world building, this book succeeds. For example, the gods’ humors—blood, seed, menses, sweat, tears, saliva, phlegm, and yellow bile and black bile (“piss and shite”)—are collected by …continue.

A century and a half ago, the believers in the Black Road were forced into exile. Now, in some bloody surprise attacks, they’ve conquered the Glas Valley. The story is largely told from the viewpoints of three brother-sister pairs: the young leaders of the Black Road attackers; the adolescent nephew and niece of the thane of the Lannis-Haig Blood; and a warrior of the Kyrinin race and his sister. Each side believes that it is in the right: the clash between two human cultures was inevitable, as is the war between the …continue.

Ararat is vast, unknowable, unmappable, home to many living gods who make their presence felt. Arjun comes from his far-distant home, seeking the Voice, the god that abandoned his people. He arrives as the Bird sweeps through the great city, trans­form­ing it by its passage, only to be captured in the warship Thunderer. A boy, Jack, also captures part of the Bird’s power as he flees the workhouse.

Gilman has created a city rem­i­nis­cent of China Miéville’s New Crubuzon, a vast baroque tapestry of neigh­bor­hoods, ruled by heavy-handed oligarchs squabbling to enlarge their fiefdoms. Miéville …continue.

Out of his mind with grief after the senseless murder of his wife Helen in What Came Before He Shot Her, Detective Su­per­in­ten­dent Tommy Lynley has been walking along the Cornish coastline for weeks when he stumbles across a dead body. Re­luc­tant­ly, he becomes part of the police in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Half the village seems to have a motive for killing the victim. Old slights and recent fights have festered, pitting family members against each other.

Elizabeth George is noted for the depth of her char­ac­ter­i­za­tion. Even the supporting characters are well-drawn, complex in­di­vid­u­als. But …continue.

This may, perhaps, be old news in bear circles, but I only read it ten days ago on the plane over, in Robert Hughes’ quirky Barcelona the Great En­chantress. The founder of Catalunyan/Catalonian/Catalan national in­de­pen­dence a thousand years’ ago was the Visigoth known as Wilfred the Hairy. History does not record with any clarity how Guifré el Pilós earned that name.

I haven’t visited the Iberian peninsula since the 1970s when the well-founded stereotype was that Spanish men had mustaches. That seems to have gone out of style: almost all men, young or old, were clean­shaven. And after having seen countless women wearing tanktops in the heat, I can say that the …continue.

The Prometheans are a secret society sworn to protect England and Elizabeth I. Kit Marley (Christo­pher Marlowe), playmaker, poet, and in­tel­li­gencer, has been killed by a dagger in the eye, at the behest of a rogue faction in the Prometheans. Another talented polemicist is required and Will Shake­speare is recruited. But Kit is not dead. He has been spirited to Faerie, where now he must serve their two queens. He becomes the lover of one, Morgan le Fay, and her son, Murchaud. Kit can return to the land of the …continue.

Robert Hughes has been in love with Barcelona and its people for four decades. This book—part selective history, part memoir—is adapted from a much larger, earlier book about Barcelona. Hughes is a partisan of Catalan culture and food. He brings us from its Roman origins as Barcino, Catalunya’s founding as an in­de­pen­dent nation a thousand years ago by the Visigoth Wilfred the Hairy, up through the Olympics in 1992. This is no com­pre­hen­sive survey: he spends more time on submarine inventor Monturiol than on the Spanish Civil War.

Well-written …continue.

Kvothe—the infamous, legendary Kvothe—has been living under an assumed name when the Chronicler tracks him down and asks him for his life story. Kvothe relates the story of his early years: his precocious talents for music and arcanism (magic); the happy childhood that ends when his parents and their troupe are murdered by an ancient evil; his years as a feral street child; and his early entrance into the University to study the Arcanum, where his brilliance makes him a star and his reck­less­ness brings him much grief.

Discursive …continue.

My eight-month experiment in daily blogging will go on hiatus for a few days. We fly out tonight and I will have only in­ter­mit­tent Internet access for the next three weeks in Spain and Ireland.

It’s possible that I’ll write a daily post, but I often won’t be able to post im­me­di­ate­ly.