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Question...
...that I was thinking of this morning on the way to work. Is there fantasy out there, somewhere, that deal with engineers/engineering? Not modern-day settings, and not applying engineering/logical principles to magic*, but things like the Roman army engineers - designing and building siege engines, bridges, forts, etc.
I normally avoid stuff of the 'modern person goes into fantasy world or past' ilk, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it may be the majority of what's available in this area.
* I hate that with the power of a thousand fiery suns. And have ranted about that before.
I normally avoid stuff of the 'modern person goes into fantasy world or past' ilk, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it may be the majority of what's available in this area.
* I hate that with the power of a thousand fiery suns. And have ranted about that before.
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Whatever you do, don't read any books by Leo Frankowski. It's worse than OH JOHN RINGO NO.
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I actually read a Frankowski once. *searches Amazon* Yup. The Fata Morgana, precisely because I like the Guy Builds Stuff genre. I don't remember anything about it other than being irritated that there wasn't enough Guy Builds Stuff to make up for the political preaching.
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It takes some hard slogging to get through assiduously researched technical descriptions of everything from dressing a duke to hunting a boar...
That sounds exactly like what I'm looking for. XD Thanks!
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Further afield, I'd highly recommend Janet Kagan's "Mirable," which deals with genetic engineering in a very fun way.
http://www.amazon.com/Mirabile-Janet-Kagan/dp/0812509935
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Mary Gentle's Rats and Gargoyles includes a lot of strange Masonic/Rosicrucian building/engineering stuff. (I guess Gentle is the pre-eminent author of this kind of stuff ... .) Plus, it's funny and less horrifically gritty than the "Ash" series.
In Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, the young Merlin works with military engineers and later uses what he learns to re-build Stonehenge.
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"Cleverness, in magic, is a great danger. Spells should be cast for vengeance, for lust, to save a soul, to complete a great work—always for some human passion. Witty magic is a disaster, for the self-directed intellect delights in setting itself paradoxes which, sooner or later, destroy it."
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It's more 'horror/vampires(?) in ancient Rome', and I haven't listened to all of it, but it definitely seemed at the beginning to go into the politics of waterworks in Rome of that period. I'd listen to more, but I've been a short story addict ever since getting addicted to podcasts like Escape Pod and Drabblecast, and it's hard to get me as hooked on a full-length novel nowadays.
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I've read all of Bujold's works* - I keep forgetting that most of the people here don't know I used to be a big contributor on the Bujold mailing list. :D
* Except for part 2 of the Sharing Knife duology, as I bounced off part 1 harder than hell. Oh well.
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I have been halfway through the third book for months.
Usually when I stall in a book it is because I am just not interested enough to finish.
In this case it is because I am actually afraid to find out what happens to the characters. I have a feeling M. Parker is going to rip out my guts and make me blot my tears with them. Oh man. And as long as I don't finish the book, ________ is still alive, and ________ and ________ are happy together, and ________ hasn't yet found out why __________ happened and what __________ has been up to... I want them all to be okay! I don't think they're going to be! I can't face it! This is so lame but I just love ________ so much, I don't want to find out about ___ unhappy ending...
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Also, I *must* monitor this post! :-)
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Engineers Unorthodox and Ancient
And then there's L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall (fiction) and Ancient Engineers (nonfiction).
And Sharing Knife now has three volumes out, with a fourth coming next year. I thought it was really good, but a bounce is a bounce.
L. friggin' Sprague de Camp.
De Camp did some historical fiction with engineers as well, but they're so old, they're almost impossible to find (best bet is a university library): "The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate," which I haven't read, but I believe is about early catapults, "The Bronze God of Rhodes," which deals with the Antigonid siege of Rhodes in 306 (?) BC and the construction of the Colossus of Rhodes -- plenty of engineering in there.
And if you want logistics, "An Elephant for Aristotle" deals with the likely possibility that Alexander the Great sent an elephant back to Greece -- and the poor bastards who have to shepherd it all the way from India to Athens!
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