Furies: Stories of the wicked, wild and untamed - feminist tales from 15 bestselling, award-winning authors

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Furies: Stories of the wicked, wild and untamed - feminist tales from 15 bestselling, award-winning authors

Furies: Stories of the wicked, wild and untamed - feminist tales from 15 bestselling, award-winning authors

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I preferred “The Sisters Strange” to “The Furies” due to its strong supernatural elements. I have a soft spot for scary tales during the Halloween season, so I am happy to report that John Connolly and his trusty protagonist do not disappoint. Pauli Kidd’s A Whisper of Wings is an intriguingly crafted novel that delves into the complex, enigmatic realm of angels and their influence on human lives. The plot focuses on Seraphine, an angel sent down to Earth to help a young female, Lark, battle her difficulties. Simultaneously, Seraphine must confront her own past and accept her presence. To be clear, I find the author’s flaws to be epistemic in nature; he doesn’t see a case for Pakistan, he sees Jinnah negatively, his scholarship fails at times. But I do not think of him as some biased pundit. This is best proven in his discussion of partition violence. The author is certainly not sectarian: he goes to great pains to emphasize that the communal violence was not a phenomenon wherein blame could simply be placed, or wherein one side went unscathed. The literary device of a ‘fury’ which the author introduces very appropriately frames this from the beginning. While if one looks you could find something to raise an eyebrow at, I think the author did a solid job. Pandemonium is the first word which comes to mind when one revisits the blood soaked days of the vivisection of India on sectarian lines in the ides of August,1947. The questions posed by partition echo to this day in the power corridors of India and Pakistan as well as the forlorn hearts of the survivors. Why exactly did partition become the only way out of the power struggle between Indian National Congress and Muslim League in the 1940s ? Why did the birth of the new nations had to be a Caesarean surgery that involved bloodshed of a million hearts ? Who are the heroes and villains of The Great Partition Drama ? Is it even possible to fix responsibility in this complex maze of intrigues and Machiavellian plots ?

Princes were nothing more than glorified warlords, and floating an army often required no more than an act of will -- once in the field, armies were expected to feed themselves and earn their pay from war booty. This explains how some countries like Sweden, hitherto impoverished and on the fringes of Europe, suddenly came to prominence. Gustavus Adolphus, the king of Sweden was a leading champion in the Protestant cause during the Thirty Years War, and led a lifetime of almost incessant warfare and briefly made his country one of the leading powers of Europe. The Sisters Strange is the longer of the two, and begins with the seemingly simple murder of a coin collector. But this is John Connolly, and nothing stays simple for long – Charlie Parker is pulled into the increasingly twisty case by an outsider concerned for one of the two sisters the expanding mystery threatens to consume. This story is lighter on the supernatural elements that have come to be this author’s trademark, but not without them entirely. It's not for beginners. Although I know a bit about India, Pakistan and the wider region due to reading up on the news, having Indian/Pakistani friends, etc. I thought this might be a great book to help me understand the history a bit better. I had read and seen a couple of interviews with the author where he talks a bit about both history and the current events and it sounded really fascinating. I enjoyed the sense of inclusivity and representation, the richness that came with so many different perspectives exploring identity, gender, sexuality, patriarchy, femininity, motherhood, ageing, and more. Some authors rooted their tales in folklore, history, magical realism (Churail, Fury, Spitfire, Tyger), while others weaved more recognisable narratives set in the present day (Harridan, Hussy, Vituperator), and several used imaginative vignettes of human interaction to present their reflections on connection, resilience, and women's experience of society throughout the ages (Wench, Dragon). Five stars because omgoodness what a Charlie Parker novel this is! Or should I say two novels? Yes, what Mr. Connolly imagined as a novella - Sisters Strange - and wrote during the early part of the pandemic instead became a short novel! It's here! And followed by The Furies. Two novels in one book! Yay!Parker uncovers a case involving stolen priceless coins. One, specifically, has a fascinating history. If you believe in the legends, it predates mankind and was minted by a demon. A mysterious coin collector named Kepler claims it rightfully belongs to him, and he has no qualms about killing anybody to retrieve it. The last known person to possess it? Buker. The Sisters Strange, Parker fears, may be in way over their heads with this. Or are they? In The Furies, Parker is hired on two separate cases by women trying to save their daughters from evil men. This story takes place in the days leading up to quarantine. The two stories are not linked, but the setting of Portland, Maine, and the characters tie the two together. Martines is to be commended for deliberately breaking with the tradition of focusing on everything but the hardships and horrible impact of war and military machines. This is the first book I have ever read that focuses exclusively on the ills of armed conflict, both on the civilizations they ravage, and on the military members themselves.

Both of these stories make it clear that even when investigating smaller cases – at least compared to some of the previous books in the series – Charlie Parker is a force for good and a character with plenty of stories left to tell. The Furies is an excellent example of a series that delights in horrifying and uplifting its readers simultaneously; long may it continue to do so. First, even if we grant that military history of the past was mostly interested in guns and generals, does that ipso facto make the study of such things illegitimate, as the author seems to suggest? Are the aims of the states that set those armies so emotionally denounced by the author in fact "meaningless"? By that standard, because the First and Second World Wars were far more horrific in terms of deaths and sufferings inflicted on the general populace, is it wrong to discuss, say, the development of tanks or the military strategy of Tsarist Russia? That's an absurd conclusion. It no doubt is import Partition was so unprecedented, so impossible to accomplish with perfect fairness, that it seems absurd to condemn any one person for so large a tragedy. Of course, I say this from a remote geographical distance. For Indians and Pakistanis, partition is personal, and remains a source of contention and finger-pointing. It is quite possible that others will sense a personal bias in Hajari – an Indian writer raised in the United States – that I did not. Jinnah is viewed very negatively, juxtaposed against the handsome and well-meaning Nehru. Jinnah’s flaws and mistakes are always seen as a fulfillment of his character, while Nehru’s flaws and mistakes are always an exception. At times, this becomes very noticeable. Jinnah’s actions are described as sinister though events that take place next clearly give him basis, while Nehru’s mistakes are always portrayed as honest ones, though events later imply he did have more serious shortcomings. I find it acceptable for an author to make comments that some might find biased (they’re human after all). But most all writing on Jinnah is accompanied by commentary on his looks, calling him ugly. The amount of time spent insulting his appearance is just unnecessary.Ongoing conflicts in Kashmir and elsewhere have renewed the relationship of antagonism between Muslims and Hindus

VIRAGO ~ CN Lester a fascinating approach to the topic of trans histories and gendered identity in history and the patriarchal confines of medical pathologies in history.

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While reading the Furies, one cannot but think of books like Victor Hansen's Carnage and Culture, that argue that there is a superior Western way of war, that has allowed Europe to beat all its non-European adversaries over thousands of years. But Hanson's examples jump from early ones drawn from the Greco-Persian wars (Thermopylae, Salamis), Alexanders's campaigns (Gaugamela), and the Roman Republic (Cannae) to one isolated example in the middle ages (Poitiers, 732 AD), and then fast forwards eight centuries to the colonial and modern periods of European ascendancy (Tenochtitlan, Lepanto, Rorke's Drift, Midway, and Tet). We are asked to believe that (A) there is something identifiably "European" about the protagonists of these battles, (B) that this "Europeanness" remained invariant over 2500 years; and (C) that this "Western Way of War" succeeds because Western armies "often fight with and for a sense of legal freedom" (Hanson, 2001, p. 21), their armies are "products of civic militarism or constitutional governments" (p. 21), their soldiers are "citizens," "Western militaries put a high premium on individualism" (p. 22), and "soldiers ... commanders ... and generals all voiced their ideas with a freedom unknown" (p. 22) among their enemies. Hanson sees European warriors as rugged, freedom-loving, property-owning individualists, coming from law-abiding, constitutional societies, going to war against despotic, tyrannical, slavish non-European powers.



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