Second paragraph of third story ("Triumph", by Robin Hobb): The dust-laden wind was drying his bared eyes, and his vision was dwindling. Tears, the tears of his body rather than the tears of his heart, ran unchecked down his cheeks. The severed muscles that had once worked his eyelids twitched in helpless reflex; they could not moisten his eyeballs ( Read more... )

Last volume of the huge epic Farsser Trilogy (at 848 pages it's the longest book I've read so far this year, more than 100 pages longer than either Buddenbrooks or Dominion which are both in the low 700s, and so is Het Verdriet van België which I've just started). It is pretty much a satisfactory conclusion to the epic, though we do seem to take a ( Read more... )

Occasionally my planned reading schedule throws up an unexpectedly appropriate pair of books to read together. and this was one of those times - both books feature palace politics in a grand fantasy world, and in both cases the main character is an illegitimate offshoot of a royal family, trained as an assassin, with the added benefit of imperfect ( Read more... )

I've known for some time that Robin Hobb is to be one of the Guests of Honour at Loncon 3, the 2014 Worldcon; and was rather guiltily conscious of the fact that I had never read any of her books. Even apart from the Worldcon connection, she has been recommended to me several times by you guys ( Read more... )