"It's a Roman road- it's roamin' all over the state!"

[captainsblog]

II items of note involving the Eternal City.

The first refers more to an Infernal City- Rome, New York, which is the site of one of only two court appearances I've got all week (compared to the five I had scheduled last week plus a major closing plus major conference calls etc. etc. etc.). It's a pro se defendant, whose only defense is really "I can't pay and I want you to assign me a lawyer." Well, civil defendants don't get that benefit, but the judge did give her until this Thursday to hire one herself- and he mandated that we both appear there that morning.

So I'm outta here either Wednesday afternoon for an overnight or at ass-crack Thursday- now with a stop in Syracuse on the way back.

----

Far more pleasant Rome-y-ness comes from my having just begun The Silver Pigs, first (I think) in the Marcus Didius Falco series of ancient Roman detective novels featuring that particular private dickus.

I opened it to find maps and long lists of dramatis personae, and wondered what I was getting into. Quickly, the answer came: marvelous fun, that's what.  It's a cross so far between a modern police procedural, Terry Pratchett anachronistic fun-making, and of course a little Ovid. (The poet, not the Finger Lakes town, or the chickens.)

I just finished Part I of Book I, where the protagonist meets a fate worse than the murder, beatings and pisspots he's had to deal with up to this point: he's sent to Britain.

Part II begins:

If you ever want to go there, I advise you not to bother.

Yeah. I'm in.

Comments

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Oh dude, you cannot _believe_ all the places this is going. I just finished A Dying Light in Corduba last night, and he gets revenge for something that happens in The Silver Pigs in that book! It was AWESOME! Also there were a lot of olive oil jokes.

So far my least favorite is Last Act in Palmyra but it's followed up by two VERY good books so I have forgiven it for not being as good.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

And of course I have you and your sister to blame for this. But in a good way;)

[ayrshire-of-elm.livejournal.com]

Okay, 'cause I read the first couple chapters last week and wasn't all that sold on the book. I will continue to read and see how I feel.

It helps that I'm not on-call to really let loose with a book.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

It builds slowly, yeah. But it does get to be a lot of fun! I had to look up some things to understand the story, and it might help to look up Roman naming conventions, so that you get used to when they use which name.

[symian.livejournal.com]

I spent many a year in Rome and Utica and Holland Patent. Err, better make that summers. A lot of summers there.