Let's see, what to talk about here today? It occurs to me that I've been going on and on (and on!) about TV shows, but have said hardly anything at all about books. This won't do at all. People will think I'm illiterate.

Right now I'm reading the first book in C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower. See, I don't restrict myself exclusively to science fiction and fantasy: this one is set on sailing ships during the Napoleanic wars. Although it's not entirely without connection to the SF genre; I understand the series was quite an influence on Star Trek, for example.

I got interested in this series when a friend showed me one of the TV adaptations from A&E. I'm not sure which book it was adapted from, but it was very good. Certainly good enough to spur me to give the books a try. (Not that it ever takes much to spur me to purchase a book, admittedly.) I'm about halfway through the first one now, and it's pretty good stuff. Lots of naval adventure with an interesting plot (or rather, interesting plots, as this first one is mainly a series of loosely connected adventures chronicling Hornblower's early career). And Hornblower is a great character, really. A very believable human being who clearly has absolutely no clue as to the astonishingly heroic figure he's obviously in the process of becoming.

The only thing that I have a problem with is all the nautical terminology. I wouldn't know a mizzenmast from a mainsail if they walked up and introduced themselves. This doesn't make it impossible to follow what's going on -- generally, it involves a lot of people crawling around on ropes doing things to the sails -- but I nevertheless find my own vast ignorance on the subject mildly annoying. If they'd included a picture labelled "Parts of a Sailing Ship" on the frontispiece or something, that would have been cool.