Monday, August 03, 2009

Move Over, Cadfael

Reading two separate things I've been working on lately, I noticed there is some overlap of subject areas that would suggest that I have an unusual combination of preoccupations:

gardens
plague
food
arsenic
the drinking of tea
tetanus
stonemasonry (professional and amateur)
Latin names for plants and animals

This would also appear to suggest that I am writing a series of medieval murder mysteries, focusing on the attempts by an herbalist to discover whether the abbey's handyman died naturally or whether someone put POISON in his BREAKFAST. Gasp! I wonder what happens! Unfortunately we will never find out, because this is not the book I am writing. However, it does sound like the plot of an Ellis Peters novel, so there's hope that this will be resolved for us in one of Brother Cadfael's many adventures. Meanwhile, I must return to my apocalyptic sci-fi thriller, to which for some reason fourteenth-century concerns seem to be integral.

2 comments:

L'Écureuil said...

is this apocalyptic sci-fi thriller what you're reading or writing? and, if the former, is it Doomsday Book?

Simon said...

No, it's what I'm writing, naturally. Only not really at all.

But now that I have looked up Doomsday Book, um, that looks kind of amazing. Do you recommend it?