Daily Archives: 16. Dezember 2014

Reading Together #5

This week you get another instalment of Weltenwanderers and Schlunzenbüchers „Gemeinsam Lesen“ (Reading Together).

Each Tuesday one of them asks four questions, with the first three always being the same about the book one is currently reading and the fourth a new one by either of them. All questions below are obviously translated from today’s German post.

1. Which Book are you currently reading and which page are you on?

I’m still reading „A Game of Thrones“ by George R.R. Martin, but for today I decided to talk about a different book that I had started back in July on our trip to the Book Hotel: Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea-saga.
Last week I struggled a bit to continue reading the other book for several reasons, so on the weekend I picked up this trilogy again.
I’m currently on page 350, which means I’m actually in the book The Tombs of Atuan.

2. What is the first sentence on your current page?

As I like to stop at chapter endings I will give you the first sentence of the new chapter, even though it’s in the middle of the page.

In der großen Schatzkammer der Gräber von Atuan stand die Zeit still.

or in English:

The time stood still in the large treasury of the Tombs of Atuan.

3. What do you desperately need to tell about your current book? (Thoughts, Feelings, a Quote, whatever you want!)

When I started reading at the Book Hotel I was soon captivated by Ged’s story in A Wizard of Earthsea and finished it, before we took off again, but when I started reading Tenar’s story afterwards, I soon got bored of her attitude.
Tenar or Ahar is quite annoying in my opinion. Bratty, selfish, arrogant and many more things I can’t quite name.
But not just that keeps me from reading on. The book has quite long chapters with rarely any breaks, where you could properly stop and you sometimes need to read up to 20 pages before a new chapter starts. And if you’re reading about a character you don’t really like those can be quite tedious 20 pages.
Still, with the faint memory of the movies in mind I still am curious how this part, which also seems to be the shortest of the three books, will continue.
It’s by the way quite interesting that the three books of this Earthsea-collection has fewer pages than A Game of Thrones, but is still a bit larger, due to larger print and occasional drawings.
And of course the fact that roughly 600 pages make up three books, while the other counts 800 for only one. With this in mind, it is not surprising that the German publishers had decided to release two translated volumes for each English book from A Song of Ice and Fire.

4. How bad are Spoilers for you? Are you annoyed, when you learn something somewhere – be it from the blurb or a review – or do you not care?

It depends.
Sometimes I read up on what is going to happen out of curiosity, sometimes I stumble across stuff through Tumblr or Facebook and then there are the times when I try to stay as far away from any information as possible.
When I am confronted with Spoilers when I don’t want to hear any than I can be quite annoyed by it, but the other times I either simply ignore it or don’t mind/accept that I now know more than I intended to.
With a series like Game of Thrones that is nearly as old as myself and has a huge Fandom, I came across several Spoilers way before I started reading and thanks to myself asking questions, I recently also learned things I’m not sure I wanted to learn in retrospect…
As reviews tend to give away quite a bit I don’t read them before I’ve seen/read it myself. I also try to write Spoiler-free Reviews here, but sometimes you can’t celebrate an awesome scene by not or only roughly talking about it…
In short: I don’t really like Spoilers – especially the big ones, but I occasionally look for them myself and am not mad if I come across them.

Additional thoughts

You can obviously participate in these questions by either using my translated or the original German version.
Besides differing intentions to continuing with the other book, my motivation to finish the final pieces of my Advent Calendar is slowly dwindling away…
There are only four stories left I need to type and translate (one of them needs to be written first), but I guess I have nearly reached my output limit…
Still, I’ll pull myself together and finish this project.
I wont give up this close to the end…
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the cover, the quote and the banner belong to their rightful owners.

Advent Calendar: Door/Türchen #16

© EdMooney Photography

He didn’t understand what had gotten into their leader.
This close to the Yule feast he had decided to start another conquest.
It wasn’t fair.
Not to them, nor to the people they were about to attack.
Cold wind blew from every direction imaginable, their supplies and tents were covered in layers of frost and sometimes even snow each morning.
And there was no sign of a success in this upcoming fight.
He sat down, his lance in hand.
This whole conflict was useless, he was certain of it.
Someone had aggravated the leader and made him prove his point by ordering this idiotic adventure.
The warrior took down his helmet and rested it on his knee.
He could now feel the wind even more, but at least he didn’t have the cold of the metal on his head any more.
Looking up his eyes landed on the shiny tip of his weapon.
It was sharp and deadly.
But what use was it when he didn’t want to fight?
He wanted to be at home with his wife and his daughter, preparing their home for the winter celebration and definitely not on a battlefield the gods knew where.
Engrossed in his musings, he didn’t hear his fellow warrior calling out for him.
„Kristoff! Kristoff! It’s time!“ He repeatedly informed him.
Finally Kristoff registered the words and acknowledged them with a reply.
He stood up and placed his helmet back on his head again.
It was time.
Time for their group to march on into this foreign land, while all he wanted was to turn back home.
Yet, he was too proud to become a traitor, but maybe with the help of others he could make their leader see reason and stop this insane quest.
It was the time of Yule after all, anything could happen.
~~~~~~~ ❄ ~~~~~~~ ❄ ~~~~~~~ ❄ ~~~~~~~ ❄ ~~~~~~~ ❄ ~~~~~~~
Er verstand nicht was in ihren Anführer gefahren war.
Das Julfest stand kurz vor der Tür und er hatte sich entschieden einen neuen Eroberungszug zu starten.
Es war nicht fair.
Nicht für sie und auch nicht für die Leute, die sie angreifen würden.
Kalter Wind blies aus allen möglichen Richtungen, ihre Verpflegung und Zelte waren am Morgen von Eisschichten und manchmal sogar Schnee bedeckt.
Und es gab kein Zeichen eines Sieges im anstehenden Kampf. Er setzte sich, die Lanze in der Hand.
Dieser ganze Konflikt war sinnlos da war er sich sicher.
Jemand hatte den Anführer angestachelt und ließ ihn nun seine Richtigkeit beweisen indem er dieses idiotische Abenteuer befehligte.
Der Krieger nahm seinen Helm ab und stellte ihn auf sein Knie.
Nun konnte er den Wind noch stärker spüren, aber immerhin hatte er jetzt nicht mehr das kalte Metall auf seinem Kopf.
Er schaute hinauf und sein Blick landete auf der leuchtenden Spitze seiner Waffe.
Sie war scharf und tödlich.
Aber was brachte sie ihm, wenn er nicht kämpfen wollte?
Er wollte zu Hause bei seiner Frau und seiner Tochter sein und ihr Haus für die Winter-Feier vorbereiten, aber definitiv nicht auf einem Schlachtfeld dessen Ort nur die Götter kannten.
In Gedanken versunken hörte er nicht wie ein anderer Krieger nach ihm rief.
„Kristoff! Kristoff! Es ist Zeit!“ Informierte er ihn wiederholt.
Endlich nahm Kristoff die Worte wahr und bestätigte sie mit einer Antwort.
Er erhob sich und setzte seinen Helm wieder auf.
Es war Zeit.
Zeit für ihre Gruppe in dieses fremde Land zu marschieren, während er nur nach Hause zurückkehren wollte.
Trotzdem war er zu stolz, um ein Verräter zu werden, aber vielleicht schaffte er es mit der Hilfe einiger anderer ihren Anführer zur Vernunft zu bringen und diese irrsinnige Unternehmung abzubrechen.
Es war immerhin die Zeit des Julfest und alles konnte da passieren.

Behind the Scenes

I hope you enjoyed the sixteenth story.
The picture was re-worked by Ed in this Re-Work Wednesday and originated from shots from the Brian Boru Millenium Festival. I really couldn’t resist putting the Viking in a Viking-setting.
Yet, I did struggle with what to call the leader, so I stuck with what you can read above.
The warriors name was by the way again borrowed from Disney, more precisely Frozen. I had a different name in mind at first, but I changed it.
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the story by me and for the picture by EdMooney Photography. Do not use or repost either without my or his permission.