Tag: medieval

11 May Updates – Preview of Lotus

Sneak Preview
This week’s is a unique (to date) look at a book I have been working on on and off for two years. It has no title as yet, but for the purpose of this I will call it Escher’s Staircase. It’s not easily categorized, so I think I will just give you the excerpt and let it speak for itself.

Escher’s Staircase (Later published as Lotus)
Copyright © 2012 by Lazlo Ferran
All Rights Reserved.

“I’m not fucking going down that! You gotta be crazy!”
I pulled away from the open hatch. “Don’t anybody think about pushing me either! Six hundred and eighty bloody feet! That’s … that’s like as high as a bloody sky-scraper!”
“Well, if you don’t do it, you will never get beyond Cadet Helmsman. Up to you matey!”quipped Shorty, lifting the glass bottle’s open neck to his scowling lips. Everything about Shorty was a tattoo – gaudy, colourful and in bad taste. Continue reading “11 May Updates – Preview of Lotus” →

Trying to Write High Medieval Poetry

Read two books on holiday in Spain (well actually I am still struggling through the second):
1. Strong of Body, Brave and Noble: Chivalry and Society in Medieval France
by Constance Brittain Bouchard (Paperback)

2. Out of Love for My Kin: Aristocratic Family Life in the Lands of the Loire, 1000-1200 – Hardcover (Apr. 15, 2010) by Amy Livingstone

Both are about the High Medieval (11th-12th century) period in France. The first is great: it reads like a ripping yarn and is full of quotes from the romantic poets of the time and the author’s witty and wry take on male/female relationships at the time. She takes the view (which I agree with) that although women were probably highly repressed at the time they still managed to find ways to express themselves and cope with the world leaving their sanity in tact. Of course I am not an expert about the period but her examples seem to validate her ideas. Continue reading “Trying to Write High Medieval Poetry” →