I first became aware of Sarah Waters when the BBC released their controversial series based on her novel Tipping The Velvet a few years ago but neither watched the full series or read any of her novels. It wasn’t that the lesbian theme bothered me, I just wasn’t particularly interested in it but I was curious about the author herself. However, to label Waters as a lesbian writer does her a great disservice because her books are rich with so many other themes and her characters intriguing. In fact, her latest novel The Little Stranger is a gothic type ghost story without a lesbian in sight. Before anyone accuses me of only reading the book because of that, let me assure you I have every intention of reading all her novels because I think she is a very talented writer.

The Little Stranger is set in 1947 and begins with Dr Farraday attending a house call at Hundreds Hall, the once stately home of the Ayres family. Farraday last visited the estate as a ten year old boy and he is shocked to see how far the house has fallen into decline during the intervening years. The current master of Hundreds Hall is Roderick Ayres, a frail young man with grave injuries received during his service with the Air Force. Along with his sister Caroline and his aging mother, Rod fight to keep the estate from drowning in debt but it appears to be a losing battle.

Farraday soon finds himself drawing closer to the family despite his initial dislike and becomes increasingly disturbed by events plaguing them. The normally placid family dog suddenly attacks a little girl for no apparent reason and Rod’s mental state begins to decline to the point where he is convinced the house is evil. Farraday finally has him committed after a near fatal fire.

Unfortunately, the disturbances continue until the remaining family members fear the house is indeed cursed and they are in real danger. Caroline begins to believe her brother may have been right all along and there is something sinister haunting the house much to Farraday’s dismay, however tragedy is never far away.

Waters is effective at evoking the atmosphere of a great house falling into decline and the sinister elements are subtle, building slowly throughout the novel. Farraday, the main narrator of the novel, is never there to witness any of the disturbances himself, with the exception of the dog incident, and this helps throw some doubt into the mix. Farraday is after all a man of science and he refuses to see anything supernatural. So are the occupants of the house victims of mass hysteria or is the house really evil?

The ending is very ambiguous and I love that Waters doesn’t bother to explain everything into a neat little package tied with a bow. As well as the supernatural aspects, Waters also introduces wider social themes such as the significant changes sweeping through the British class system and the impending birth of the NHS.

I’ve been a fan of Anne Rice’s since that fateful day in the library when I picked a copy of The Vampire Lestat of the shelf, read the summary, decided it wasn’t for me and put it back again. I couldn’t find anything else interesting to read, so went back and decided to give it a go. I literally could not put the book down and it was the start of a love affair for me. No other character in a book has intrigued me more to this day than Lestat de Lioncourt.

Unfortunately, after the first four books were released, Rice went back and wrote more vampire tales but they could not live up to her earlier books and it was very frustrating as a reader. Lestat’s last appearance was lukewarm to say the least and even I was thinking it was time to move on.

Rice has always maintained the inspiration for Lestat came from her husband Stan and when he sadly died, it seemed like Rice’s love for the supernatural realm went with him. She rediscovered her faith and began writing about Christ. I can’t comment on whether these books were any good though since I haven’t read them as the subject doesn’t really appeal to me.

So, when I realised Rice had returned somewhat to the supernatural world for her latest book, Angel Time, which is part of a series entitled Songs of the Seraphim, curiosity got the better of me and I just had to read it. The book centres around the character of Toby O’Dare aka Lucky the Fox, an assassin who takes his orders from The Right Man, a shadowy character of unknown allegiance who assures Toby he is working for the good side.

During one of these missions, Toby is visited by a seraph who offers him the chance to save lives instead of destroying them. Toby is torn between continuing to work for The Right Man, who is at least familiar, and the seraph who claims to be from God. Toby finally accepts the seraph’s deal and is transported back to 13thC England where he becomes a friar and has to save the lives of innocent Jews. Along the way, Toby has to find his own redemption for his past actions.

While I didn’t hate the book, I didn’t exactly fall in love either. Most of the first half of the novel is taken up by how Toby’s unhappy childhood contributed to his becoming an assassin and it is a long time before the seraph even makes an appearance. Toby takes a while to make his decision and there is a real sense his soul is being fought over by forces of good and evil but it all takes too long. When Toby finally decides to go with the seraph, he is finally transplanted in 13C England where he must save the lives of a Jewish couple who have been accused of murdering their daughter after she participates in a Christian service.

As it turns out, the girl died of appendicitis but the death is covered by the family so it doesn’t look suspicious coming so soon after the girl’s apparent interest in Christianity. The whole thing backfires badly and when Toby learns the truth about her death, he devises a scheme to pass the girl’s identical twin of as the dead girl during a trial. The identical twin had already converted to Christianity some years before and had been sent away by the family before moving to their present location so very few knew of her existence. Toby manages to save their lives but the crowd turn its attention on him and it all ends in violence before the seraph can lift Toby away.

At the end of the book, Toby reflects on the lessons he has learned, discovers he is a father and is given another mission. The book seemed rather uneven to me, spending too much time on Toby’s motives and not enough time on his mission in the past, however I get the impression it was just setting up the premise for the series and hopefully the next book will correct that. Overall, the premise of the books intrigues me enough to make me want to read the next one but it remains to be seen whether Rice has another epic series on her hands.

Version 3 seems to be playing fine although Fan Control cranks up the fans something fierce and they are very noisy during play. I guess they are doing their job and it’s better than my poor wee MBP frying itself. I checked the temps after playing one day and the temp is actually lower than the spikes caused by the games on Facebook. I don’t play it for hours on end though so it shouldn’t be a problem. The graphics are not 100% with a few jagged edges here and there but it is no worse than TS2. I get a very slight lag when there’s a lot going on but I tend to avoid those situations anyway. Moving between houses and community lots is also fairly quick so no complaints, especially since it used to take forever in TS2.

The game itself is actually very similiar but there are quite a few changes in it. I know one of the biggest complaints from some players is if you stop playing a particular family, they get on with their lives without you so it would cause a lot of problems for those who like to have total control. You can turn story progression off though. At the moment, I’m sticking with one of the pre-made families and learning all the new ways of playing with them. You can also have more than one game saved so you can create multiple families and have them in their own separate versions of that neighbourhood.

One of the things I found the most annoying in TS2 was playing with a family, having teens fall in love and after they aged into adults, I would have to go into the love interest’s family and age the teen up so the lovebirds could be together. In TS3, that doesn’t happen. The neighbourhood families progress without your input and that means kids should hopefully age at the same rate.

There isn’t a lot of custom content out there yet, but I’m determined not to have as much installed in TS3 anyway because I used to spend more time searching for content than playing the damn game.

The thing I look forward to the most is the release of new genealogical records at Scotland’s People, although this year they were released earlier. I haven’t had time to go look yet.

I do have this overwhelming need to change things in my life though. I’m becoming increasingly dissatisfied with my job but there’s not a lot I can really do in that respect. I can’t change it because there are no jobs to be had and the one I’m in is secure and pays well. I know there is more to life than money but at the end of the day, you can’t do a hell of a lot without it. I think my only option is to concentrate on my own job and forget everything else, especially stuff I have no control over. I don’t need to be stressing about how other people do or don’t do their jobs.

I’ve also decided to do more theatre stuff this year if I can manage it, even if no one wants to go with me. It sucks being the only ballet fan I know! Never mind, matinees are easy for going solo. I don’t see why I should have to miss out on stuff just because no one else seems to care about it.

I’m making no resolutions and no year end review this year. Some things are best left behind.

It’s officially a white Christmas in Scotland after flakes of snow dropped on the appropriate building in Glasgow yesterday.

Personally, I would’ve claimed it as a white Christmas anyway since there is still loads of white stuff on the ground and claiming otherwise is rather absurd. It’s actually snowing again as I write. Accordingly, the words “I wonder if we’ll get any snow this winter” have yet to be uttered.

We haven’t had this much snow in ages and while it is causing all sorts of chaos, it’s also a lot of fun. There was much hilarity at work last week as cars got stuck in the ice and the men folk had to rush out for pushing duties.

Staying with the snow theme, Santa brought me two more Snowbabies collectibles, the picture above shows Rising Star which is now the biggest one in my collection and has three Snowbabies balancing on three snowmen, two of which have adorable material caps. I love Snowbabies and would buy them all if I could. The second one below is entitled Soak Away All Your Worries.

We did make it through to my brother’s despite the awful weather since the main roads are virtually clear and only a few side roads causing problems. The kids were still hyper and seemed very happy with their gifts which were strewn around the living room, making it hard to find space to walk, never mind sit down. My youngest nephew, Andrew, was trying to teach my mum how to do the drums on the Wii and it was so funny. My brother is so evil though, he kept giving her bad tips so she would do everything wrong just so he could laugh even more.

Apart from a brief stop at my aunt’s house on the way home, that was more or less it for visits. The streets have been awfully quiet this year and I think most folk are opting to stay warm. Unfortunately, the TV has been a real letdown as usual but I’m loving the ballet season on the BBC. I watched Swan Lake on Christmas Eve and watched Matthew Bourne’s version on YouTube last night. Since Swan Lake is one of my favourite ballets ever, I wasn’t sure I would like the idea of men as the swans but I love it so much I’ve ordered the DVD. Tonight, Bourne’s The Car Man is on More 4 so I’ll probably watch that too. It’s a revision on Carmen. LOL! There’s loads of opera on this year too but I really can’t get into that.

Boy, how cultured am I this weather? Hope you all had a good day yesterday.

Today, she’s been going around looking smug, like she’s won a major coup and is untouchable. The smile was pretty much wiped off her face when she realised most of us weren’t going to give her the time of day. I’m so angry, I just want to smack her face every time she comes near me. I can’t bring myself to talk to her right now. I’m being perfectly pleasant in regard to work matters but that’s all she is going to get. Once or twice I could feel my blood pressure rising but I just calmed myself down and blocked her out as much as I could. She’s not worth it.

I can’t believe she even had the nerve to come back since it is so obvious no one wants her there and we all know what’s happened even if we don’t know the details. She is just so brazen.

Welcome to the civil service where you get paid for doing nothing. In fact, don’t work or show you are interested because it doesn’t mean anything at the end of the day and you will get treated like garbage. Go to work, don’t do anything, take loads of breaks, surf the net, send personal emails, arrange your social life and the civil service will foot the bill. No worries.

Cheered myself up by booking tickets for the Scottish Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet in the Spring and I’m going on my own. I’m tired of worrying if others are enjoying themselves so I’m going alone.