Teaser Thursday (15): A two-for-one deal!

I was such a slacker yesterday and did not get  chance to post a teaser, dear readers, so you are getting not one, but two great teasers (actually, I was driving down to campus because I left my phone and charger in class on Monday and I had to pick them up from the library lost and found).

The first one comes from Elizabeth Peters’ The Curse of the Pharoahs, which is an awesomely hilarious, adventurous and mysterious book, if I do say so myself.

Bucolic peace is not my ambience, and the giving of tea parties is by no means my favorite amusement. In fact, I would prefer to be pursued across the desert by a band of savage Dervishes brandishin spears and howling for my blood. I would rather be chased up a tree by a mad dog, or face a mummy risen from its grave. i would rather be threatened by knives, pistols, poisonous snakes and the curse of a long-dead king.

Lest I be accused of exaggeration, let me point out that I have had all those experiences, save one. However, Emerson once remarked that if I should encounter a band of Dervishes, five minutes of my nagging would unquestionably inspire even the mildest of them to massacre me.

Emerson considers this sort of remark humorous. Five years of marriage have taught me that even if one is unamused by the (presumed) wit of one’s spouse, one does not say so,” (1-2).

 

The next comes from Connie Willis’ Hugo award winning time-travel novel, To Say Nothing of the Dog.

“No,” I said, smiling at her. Infirmary nurses usually resemble something out of the Spanish Inquisition, but this one had an almost kindly face, the sort an assistant torturer, the one who straps you to the rack or holds the door to the Iron Maiden open for you, might have,” (16).

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