"The House and the Brain" by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton is a well known author of supernatural horror, but also was a politician and active socialite during his life in the mid-XIX century.  HP Lovecraft mentions him in his essay on Supernatural Horror in Literature and admires his sense for the supernatural, but criticizes his obsession with spiritualism and the occult.  This story is different as it deals with a haunted house, but not from cheap-thrills point of view, but from a scientific (for 1850s) stance and with underlying attempt to explain and understand the phenomenon, instead of just reveling in screams and shivers.  I saw several reviews online complaining about the author using "Old English" words and writing in an "old style"??? Duh! It is written in the mid-1800s! Does anyone even research authors they read anymore??

Lovecraft's essay is a wonderful source of books to put on one's reading list if one is interested in how the contemporary horror genre came to be.  Many of the books would be disappointing from today's point of view, used to visual media, quick development, twists and turns - some of the older books from the 1700s and 1800s could seem outright boring, but that's only for the unsophisticated and untrained reader.  Even Lovecraft's books are slow, tedious and even boring by today's standards, but if we take in account the time and mores when they were written (no TV, no Internet, no Instant-Gratification-Culture) - they are straightforward revolutionary.  The author of this blog has read a large percentage of the books mentioned in Lovecraft's essay, including the (possibly) non-fiction Francis Barrett volume.

Lytton's story intimates of a (very) haunted house in central London, where people who stay either run away or die in strange circumstances.  The hero of the story is a researcher in occult matters and stays a night at the house during which frightening visions and apparitions occur, causing the death of his dog and permanent flight of his faithful servant, but he stays and survives the night only by the strength of his will and his knowledge of the occult theories.

He is persuaded that houses don't just get haunted of themselves, but there is a malicious human brain behind it which causes the frights and the misfortunes.  He persuades the owner to completely destroy and dig out a part of the house where he finds strange occult apparatus and a miniature portrait of a person who apparently has lived for several centuries.  Eventually the hero meets this person who is back to England from decades-long interval spent in the Middle East, and accuses him of putting the curse on the house and its inhabitants (including killing a small boy by starvation and abuse) almost a century ago and being the cause of all evil happenings in the house.

The strange man confirms the hero's suspicions but proves too strong and puts the hero in a hypnotic trance and uses him as a medium to see his own future and afterwards puts a spell on him not to be able to communicate about anything that happened for three months.  Within those three months the malicious occultist disappears from England and the hero is afterwards released from the numbing spell and writes this story.

"Time of Contempt" by Andrzej Sapkowski

This book continues the story from "Blood of Elves" and is thankfully better written, though no gem of literary value in any case.

Yennefer and Ciri go to "Wizard School" to enroll Ciri, but she escapes to Geralt, who eventually brings her back and rekindles his lifelong romance with Yenn in the process.  Yenn has Geralt as her formal date for the BiGWiZaRdReCePtIoN which is mostly gossip, banter, vanity, poison and nastiness.  However, further nastiness ensues when a coup is staged at the Wizard School after the reception, Nilfgardian camp agains Northern Kingdoms camp and in the process a bunch of people are killed, dismembered, tortured, broken, and similar fun stuff.

Ciri escapes, while Geralt is playing the buffer against the main Nilfgardian-allied wizard, who pretty much mops the floor with him and leaves him with every bone in his body broken, but still alive, just for fun.  Meanwhile the Nilfgardian Emperor Emhyr receives a fake Ciri (lookalike) whom he wants to marry, and who is also his only daughter since Emhyr is the Hedgehog-man who marries Pavetta of Cintra.  He doesn't mind incest, it seems, as long as it gets him Cintra under his belt.  But he knows his Ciri is fake so sends people to find the real one.

Ciri is teleported to the "Frying Pan" desert of Korath where she survives only thanking to her magical powers and a Unicorn (I'm not kidding).  But she gets captured by bounty hunters, who want to rape her, and brag about gang raping someones wife all night long so she couldn't move her arms and legs in the morning.  Tells you about the time and customs in which this Saga is happening.

The bounty hunters/gang-bangers get slaughtered and cut into pieces by a band of merry thieves and brigands called "The Rats" who eventually allow Ciri to join them under the name Falka (a grand-grand mother of Ciri, but no one knows that - yet).  The book ends with Nilfgard hiring a top bounty hunter to kill all the "Rats" including Ciri.

To be continued.

"Sword of Destiny" by Andrzej Sapkowski

The "Sword of Destiny" is the second book in the Witcher Saga by its internal chronology, although most of the stories have been written before the ones in "The Last Wish".  These stories are longer, more convoluted and less exciting than the ones in the previous collection.

"The Bounds of Reason" is about a dragon-hunter dragon who is also a human and a couple of sexy female bodyguards who seem to have been lifted straight out of a Conan story. 

"A Shard of Ice" is about Yennefer's and Geralt's relationship and the promiscuous life Yenn used to lead, and still leads to some extent.  After all, a couple of hundred years in a young, enhanced female body coupled with magical powers is probably a strong motivator for any female to play the field as much as physically possible.

"A Little Sacrifice" is about a mermaid being in love with a human (a local nobleman asshole, go figure), and starving Geralt working for free because he has to much principle and dignity to slaughter every self-indulgent prick who insults him (as he justly should).  He is also too principled to take a woman's heart (and body) while knowing he cannot reciprocate long-term, even though the woman is also a smart and talented bard (Little Eye) who would want nothing more in the world.   Dandelion is pretty cool here too.

"The Sword of Destiny" is starting the Ciri Saga which will be the main theme for the rest of the 6 volumes.  She is 14-15 here and abducted (kind of) by the Forest Dryads who are getting ready to make her one of their own (as they steal human children and mutate them through poisons and potions to increase their ranks).  Eventually Geralt gets her out and their lifelong adventures begin.  Their banter is priceless.

"Something More" concludes the collection and it is about Ciri becoming entangled with Geralt forever.  A theme before was that "Destiny is not Enough", but here Ciri says to Geralt "I am your Destiny" and Geralt replies "You are Something More".  Pretty cool.

Overall this collection is weaker and worse written than "The Last Wish" but definitely better than "Blood of Elves" as nothing can be as bad as that one.  I read a bunch of reviews moaning how sexist the book is - newsflash - the entire saga happens in 12th century Poland when women were treated as something marginally better than furniture or livestock.  Imposing 2018 standards on the past is moronic.  The past is what it was and it should be fully described as such, not embellished or "updated".

"The Light of Other Days" by Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur Clarke lured me into lifelong science fiction fandom.  I still remember reading his "Against the Fall of Night" and long afterwards dreaming about the cities of Diaspar and Liz.  Eventually I made up my mind to read everything Clarke ever wrote, and almost finished all his fiction works!  Almost, but not quite.  Although I read Clarke's non-fiction as well, I was less impressed by it than by his fiction.  I really liked the Mysterious World series on TV, and bought the book that went with it (actually all three books), but I was disappointed that the book was written by other people, while Clarke would only give his thoughts on the chapter/episode subject matter.

"The light of other days" is a similar case.  It is written by Stephen Baxter based on a synopsis (probably just an idea) by Clarke.  It uses elements from Clarke's "Childhood's End" which is one of the most amazing books I've ever read. 

The idea is along Einsten's joke that if you had a lens powerful enough you could see around the curvature of the Universe, and thus see the past.  You wouldn't be able to travel back in time, as that is always to remain impossible because of entropy and preservation of mass, but you would be able to see the light of the past and thus also the images that light is carrying.   There is no such thing as physical time travel and there will never be one (otherwise we'd be swarmed with time tourists already), despite the silly story arches in sci-fi shows.  Also no one will every be able to influence the past, since light travels only one way, from the past to the present and the future.

Baxter's book talks about a WormCam, which is a wormhole into time and space, that can see light from past events, pretty much anywhere and anytime.  Besides the romantic story and the sociological didactic story about a self-made billionaire creating a clone of himself in order to be in full control (spoilers!!!), the book is mostly a speculation on what changes in society and people when everybody knows that they are under constant surveillance at every moment of their existence.

Obviously the society as we know it would fall apart, as everyone sane knows that it is based on lies, delusions and secrets, that are mostly getting passed for "morality and rules."  When everyone knows everything about everyone else, politics and crime are almost impossible, while people start walking around naked and having sex in public, as everyone can see them through a WormCam nomatter where and when.

Also many myths fall apart, like Jesus, Moses, Ice Age, Human Ancestors, Columbus, etc. as now everyone can see what really happened (or nothing happened at all!) and uncover the lies and cover ups in the official versions.

Interesting book, but it has the attraction of non-fiction, more than that of a fiction book.

"The Last Wish" by Andrzej Sapkowski

This is the first book of The Witcher heptalogy (so far) and it is actually good!  Well, anything would be good compared to "Blood of Elves" so the bar was not particularly high.  This book is presented as a collection of short stories, and it is true that many of the stories have been published before in various magazines, but the first story is an over-arching narrative within which the other stories are presented as chapters in Chaucerian style, as stories told by Geralt to various people while waiting in the temple for his wounds to recuperate.

"The Voice of Reason" is the over-arching story, giving us insight into how the local authorities view the witchers (hint, horribly, which is tenuous, because witchers perform enormous services to the government and the people by taking on monsters that even the bravest (?) knights and soldiers are afraid to do.  In fairy tales witchers would be offered kings' daughters hands in marriage for the things they do, but Sapkowski has them treated as vermin.  Unconvincing.). 

"The Witcher" (Wiedzmin) is the first story about Geralt ever published by Sapkowski back in 1986.  It tells of how Geralt defeated the stryga which was actually illegitimate child of King Foltest's incestuous relationship with his own sister. 

"A grain of truth" is the second story and my favorite, telling about a monster-looking man who is not actually a monster (doesn't react to silver).  He was cursed by a temple priestess to transform outwardly into a monster while he was raping her in order to "become a man" as his father told him.  Nivellen, the monster-man, actually finds out that many merchants are happy to leave their daughters for a year at his disposal, in exchange for a share of his treasure.  The daughters themselves, to the last one, enjoy the sexual prowess of the monster-man quite a lot, after the initial acclimatization.  However Nivellen longs for true love which can lift the curse and that comes in a form of a Bruxa, a super-vampira, which can turn invisible and has a sonic attack that renders people unconscious.  Geralt defeats the Bruxa with Nivellen's help, and with her dying breath she professes true love for Nivellen, who is also mortally wounded by her, and just before he dies, he is transformed back into a man.

"The Lesser Evil" tells the story of how Geralt, undeservedly, got to be called "The Butcher of Blaviken."  He kills a group of thugs who intend to kill the market-goers in the city of Blaviken, but the locals were unaware of the thugs intention, so they think Geralt frivolously committed a massacre.  Renfri, the beautiful leader of the thugs, is actually a princess who cast away by the wizard Stregobor and her evil mother, sent to a forest with a hunter to kill her.  But the hunter, in his "mercy" doesn't kill her, but rapes her, robs her of all she has and lets her go.  The following years Renfri spends begging for food and being raped by various men for shelter, but eventually grows strong and becomes an assassin who now wants to kill Stregobor.  Geralt refuses to choose between the greater and lesser evil, saying all evils are the same.  Renfri sleeps with him saying she will leave town the next morning, but she goes to kill Stregobor.  When Geralt confronts her and tells her to leave town or be killed, she decides to fight him and inevitably is cut open by Geralt.  With her last words she tries to lure Geralt closer, but he doesn't fall for it, and as she dies a sharp dagger falls out of her clutched hand.  Geralt is exiled from Blaviken forever.

The third story, "A question of price" is a precursor to much of what happens later in the books and the games.  Queen Calanthe of Cintra is marrying her daughter Pavetta, who just turned 15, for a political alliance, but a man-hedgehog (urcheon) appears claiming he has a right to her already.  Pavetta turns out not only to have already chosen the urcheon-man, but is already pregnant with his child.  This child is to be Cirilla, or Ciri, who is the main plot device for all the later books and all The Witcher games.

The fourth story, "The end of the world" is probably the weakest, but it sets the stage of how Elves are treated in The Witcher universe and their ultimately inevitable demise.

The fifth story, "The Last Wish" is about when Geralt first met Yennefer, the love of his life.  She has had pretty wild love life before Geralt and initially does't pay him much attention, even being very crude and rude to him yelling "you would like to lick my tits, and something else."  This changes when Geralt saves her from a genie, which she thought she could put under her control, and the genie insists of fulfilling a wish of Geralt's who wishes that he and Yennefer are bound together forever.  At the moment of the wishes fulfillment, he has an insight that Yennefer was a hunchback before becoming a sorceress, which was common at the time, since parents only gave their daughters for sorceress school if there was no chance of them ever getting married.  The sorceress training corrected her physical flaws and made her beautiful (although not conventionally, Sapkowski says).

"Blood of Elves" by Andrzej Sapkowski

This is the first novel in "The Witcher" pentalogy of novels (for now), and if you count the first two collections of Witcher short stories, then this is the third book in a fantasy heptalogy.  Sapkowski published his first Witcher (Wiedzmin) story in his native Poland in 1986.  The books were apparently very popular in Eastern Europe, but they really got to be known in the west after the Polish software/gaming company CD Project RED published the series of Witcher games, the third installment of which, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is proclaimed by many specialized magazines and sites as the "Best Action RPG of all time" (btw, Action RPG is different from just RPG).

Well, the author of this blog LOVES the game Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and has already sunk about 120 hours of playing into it (still just level 31, and haven't finished the main story, nor started the DLCs).  And because (obviously) the author of this blog also loves to read, he (yes, a guy! how curious!) also found the books, that is the English translations, by Sapkowski and started reading.

Let me tell you form the get go that if you expected something of Tolkien or even Martin quality - you will be very disappointed.  The writing is much poorer, and so are the characters and plots.  However it is not that bad.  True, the first 150 pages of "Blood of Elves" are so boring and horribly written that it is an act of masochism to force yourself to read them, but it gets better.  The last 50 pages are actually gripping.

You will meet familiar characters from the games, the Witchers: Geralt, Vessimir, Eskell, Lambert; the Sorceresses: Triss Merigold, Yennefer of Venderberg, Philippa and others; and the other assortment of characters: Dandelion, Zoltan. the Scoia'tail, the Nilfgardians, and of course, Ciri.  The characters have much more dialogue, and do not sound exactly like in the games, but the differences are welcome.  There are differences in characters' looks and manners from the games (Triss does not show a neck cleavage), but they are not major.

The book starts after the conquest of Cintra and many parties looking for Ciri, the last heir to Cintra's throne and possessing Elder Blood which gives her special powers.  Geralt saves her and takes her to Kaer Morhen, the Witchers' fortress, to be hidden but also trained as a Witcher, though there have never been female Witchers in the entire history.  Eventually Triss Merigold arrives at Kaer Morhen to give Ciri a female perspective and advises that Ciri is moved somewhere else because many sorcerers already learned about her location.

Many betrayals and battles happen during the moving but eventually Ciri is given as a ward to Yennefer who undertakes to train her as a sorceress.  After initially butting heads, Ciri and Yennefer take to each other and the actual sorcery training begins.  The book ends with Ciri learning telekinesis and Yennefer comparing the Witcher's Aard sign to real telekinetic sorcery.

"The Art of Invisibility" by Kevin Mitnick

The Art of Invisibility is the latest book by Kevin Mitnick, published in 2017, so it is pretty current with the events happening in the tech world, as books like these very soon become obsolete because of the flood of new information and happenings.

Mitnick talks about how easy it is to figure out someone's moves online only if you knew some basic information and gives examples from his past life as a hacker.  The bottom line is that it is very difficult to be invisible or anonymous online, even if one has a perfectly good and legal reason for it, like being harassed for example. 

His previous book, the autobiographical "Ghost in the Wires" is a much more exciting read, and it seems like this book has been cobbled together to take some advantage of Mitnick's name and brand (which is fading nowadays), and pull together some advice that can readily be found around the internet and organize it in one place.

Most of the advice in the book can be found around the internet, and is nothing terribly complicated, but all recommendations come down to either not be online at all (the best way), or if you do to keep separate, anonymously purchased devices and accounts for the anonymous dealings online. 

It is unclear if the main purpose of the book is to protect your sensitive data online (for example your banking info and logins, but then again, you cannot be anonymous to your bank), or how to be anonymous in your writings/actions online.

There is some good advice on never keeping browser history, using plugins like EFF HTTPS Everywhere, NoScript, AdBlocker and Ghostery, and also using TOR in order not to be tracked by your ISP or social media sites, however most of the book is anecdotes from the life of Kevin Mitnick.