Finally, the second part of Lois McMaster Bujold’s two part fantasy series. And best of all I borrowed the book so I didn’t have to spend any money. Ka-ching.

These two books have been interesting reads; enjoyable but different. Bujold is a great writer, world and character builder and so far all of her books have been good. But these two each resolved a bit different. In most sci-fi/fantasy books there’s a big evil to defeat and then very slaps themselves on the back on goes on their merry way. In the Sharing Knife books, there is a bad guy defeated, but it’s almost secondary. It happens well before the end of the book and there’s not a big dénouement where everything is resolved.

It was an interesting way to structure the stories. But while I liked them, I don’t think I’d want all of her books to follow that pattern.

And I really could use another Vorkosigan book.

Edited to add; upon further reading it appears there will be at least one more Sharing Knife book.

No we didn’t stand in line. I considered it, but then decided on a nap instead. We did walk over to Barnes and Noble after going to the gym and bought on the thousand or so copies they had stacked up.

Yes it was a great book…I was worried given that I didn’t care for the sixth book very much. That one seemed more like an extended build up for the last book in the series.

“The Deathly Hallows” worked for me, lots of action and satisfying ending. Although it did seem our heroes spent too much time camping in the woods for my taste.

One day I’ll go through and read the entire series in a row, but probably not for a while given my current to read list.

I’m almost forty years old and I’m thinking, “I shouldn’t start a new book tonight, Harry Potter comes out this weekend.”

I picked up this book several months ago after reading about it over the years and promptly put it down after the first couple chapters. I couldn’t get into it. I decided to give it another shot and it turns out it gets really good around chapter three.

A magical incident leaves gates in time scattered through history where you can enter and leave the time stream. A dying millionaire hires Coleridge scholar Brendan Doyle to accompany him back into time to a lecture by Coleridge along with several paying tourists. When Brendan is left behind when every one returns, hilarity ensues.

This is the first book by Tim Powers I read and I enjoyed the heck out of it once the book got movies. It’s got action, adventure, wit and a great historical back-drop. I’m definitely going to get more books by him.

I realized when I wrote the Heinlein anniversary post that there were quite a few juveniles of his that I haven’t yet read. I happened to have this one on my to read shelf and decided now would be a good time to catch up.

A boy sold into slavery, adopted by a beggar who is more than he seems and then makes a tour of the know galaxy and social structure. A fun read but not among my favorites by Heinlein.

White Night

I really was going to hold off reading the new Harry Dresden novel, I snarf them up too quickly for it to be worth spending hardback prices. Luckily, I was able to get my friend Anna addicted to the series so I was able to just borrow her copy.

Another great read, typical of the past few books. Someone’s killing minor practitioners of magic and some think that person may be Harry.

Jim Butcher does a good job of resolving the main story line of the novel while keeping the bigger arc moving along at the same time. I was a bit disappointed with how quickly the Lash storyline resolved. Now I have to wait another year for the next book.

The Ghost Brigades

I read John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War last year and enjoyed it, a well done sci-fi military novel in the vein of Robert Heinlein. This one is a sequel that has one Jane Sagan from the first book but she isn’t really the main character. Jared Dirac is a artificially grown clown of a renegade scientist with a copy of his consciousness transferred in. Unfortunately it didn’t quite take, but given that the entire human civilization may be at stake it’s important to find out what bouncing around his head.

I enjoyed it, note quite as much as the first novel but enough to want to read the sequel, The Last Colony.

Today’s the 100th anniversary Robert Heinlein’s birth. Sadly, he passed too soon at the early age of 80. He was a huge influence on my during my teenage years and is probably one reason I’m an engineer today.

I developed the ability to not fear failure from his work and to take joy from human foibles.

“Am I handicapped? Yes, but my handicaps do not interfere with my work — or my joy in life. Over forty years ago the Navy handed me a piece of paper that pronounced me totally and permanentally disabled. I never believed it. That piece of paper wore out; I did not.”

I’m been out of going to the session for weeks and haven’t been playing much, so my fingers are mush. Here’s a quick jig to get back into shape.

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Turns out when I migrated the domain to a new hosting service, I didn’t enable a mime type for abc files. As a result they were showing up as a 404. Now they should appear as text files.

I decided to take a break from reading an in-dept book about the Iraq War to read a quick, light fantasy so I pulled a Charlie Stross book off the shelf. Normally I’m a bit leery of sci-fi authors who try their hand at fantasy, Bujold being the exception, but I liked the other books by Stross and was willing to give it a try.

Miriam is an investigative reporter in New England who finds out more than she’s supposed about her bosses and a possible mob connection, and then discovers surprising secrets about her birth mother and her families ability to walk between worlds. Then things get interesting.

It took a few chapters for me to become interested and my biggest complaint was discovering a cliff-hanger at the end of the book. It was fun and breezy and obviously a bit inspired by Roger Zelazny.

I’ve got a pile a books to go through including the new Dresden Files book, so I won’t be picking up part two anytime soon but I’ll add it to my list.