I've moved

My blog is now at http://victoriasnelling.wordpress.com/. Please come and see me there.

I've been getting increasingly disillusioned with the ubiquity of google and what the company plans to do with that ubiquity. I don't think they can claim 'don't be evil' as their motto any more. I'm not especially worried about privacy but I do care about my searches being tracked so google can give me results based on what I've previously looked at. I like serendipity in my life and I like finding things I haven't looked at before. Go away google and stop interfering.

I'm not going to de-google completely, but my google+ account is going and I'm moving my blog. Oh, and I'm using a different search engine.

The Way We Live Now

Free kindle books! Yay. There are books now out of copyright that are available free for the kindle and I have availed myself of a few. One of them is The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope which I wanted to read as it was mentioned in an article on The Business Case for Reading Novels.

Mr Melmotte arrives in London amidst rumours of vast wealth, shady deals and a lack of breeding. It is set in London in 1870 and there are several lordlets in search of an heiress. Melmotte's wealth is reckoned to be so great it overrides any considerations that he might be a commoner.

One of the lordlets is Felix Carbury whose mother has decided that she will make a living (she has to because her son gambles away her money) writing books. She surmises that it is more important to persuade influential critics to say her books are good than it is to actually write good books. Felix's sister, Hetta, has an offer of marriage from her cousin, Roger Carbury, who is a model of virtue. But she is in love with Paul Montague, a hapless young man who is manipulated into investing his entire wealth in a transamerican railway and finds it hard to disentangle himself from a previous engagement.

Melmotte is brought in on the railway scam and the share price rises. Melmotte's wealth is reckoned to be incalculable and his ego is flattered to the point that he is persuaded to stand for parliament. Then everything starts to unravel.

This was originally published as a serial and occasionally there is a bit of recapping. Obviously this is a very old book so there's not much to say about style - it is of its time. However, I found it highly readable and was completely absorbed. None of the characters really come out well and yet it is hard to say who is really bad.

It was funny in places and is very relevant to the current economic climate. I was a little disppointed by the ending and would have preferred a less fairytale resolution, but that's a minor point. Overall it was an excellent read and I recommend it.

Writing is a funny thing

I had a bit of break at Christmas and I took the opportunity to think about how the elements of my life fit together and where I'm spending my time. I decided I was going to work out how to reduce the amount of time I spend commuting and that I would put writing on the back burner while I sorted that out.

Ever since then I've been writing loads. Opportunities to reduce my commute are few and far between so that hasn't been taking up as much time as I thought. My novel is very much on the shelf, but I have a collection of short stories underway. I'm writing fiction based on my roleplaying games and am chronicling our current campaign at the London Storytelling Carrion Crown Campaign blog.

I haven't written this much in ages and I think it's because I'm supposed to be doing other things.