Books and no pants
Today's agenda: trashy fantasy novels. I read the latest Sword of Truth book, in which nothing happened, and managed to not happen for all 500 pages, and the one character I liked never showed up. Booooring.
Then I read Zandru's Forge, one of the newer Darkover books that Marion Zimmer Bradley is somehow writing from beyond the grave. It was pretty good; it was mostly about Varzil the Good's early life and Tower training, prior to the Compact being accepted. (The Compact, for those of you who don't read Darkover, was the people's agreement to only fight each other with swords, knives, etc., because magical weapons are unfair.) I spent about half of it being totally confused, though, because halfway through it runs into the story of Carolin the usurped Hastur king, Romilly MacAran who disguises herself as a boy, and so on. I distinctly recall reading about that in Hawkmistress; the problem is that according to the chronology listed in this book these two books are not contemporaneous. Hawkmistress is set in the Ages of Chaos, it says, and this one is set in the Hundred Kingdoms era, which is the next era of stories. So that doesn't make sense. Do any of you guys read Darkover? If you like fantasy (especially "soft" character-driven fantasy a la McCaffrey, only a little more plotty, or Lackey but less wish-fulfillment and torturey) you totally should. You can find most of the books used for super-cheap, and there are omnibus paperback editions of the major sequences. I can tell you more about it if you want.
We then went to the mall, where I found no pants that fit. I wanted pants, and I tried on pants at three different stores. No luck. I feel fat. The plus-sized store, Torrid, had some nice pants that I at least know would be big enough, and a really really pretty top, but I didn't get a chance to try anything there on. Maybe if I still want them I'll go back.
But, yay, my present for me got here from Amazon -- the latest Chalion book ('cause LMB is one of the only authors I buy in hardcover these days), and the new Sleater-Kinney album. w00t.
Then I read Zandru's Forge, one of the newer Darkover books that Marion Zimmer Bradley is somehow writing from beyond the grave. It was pretty good; it was mostly about Varzil the Good's early life and Tower training, prior to the Compact being accepted. (The Compact, for those of you who don't read Darkover, was the people's agreement to only fight each other with swords, knives, etc., because magical weapons are unfair.) I spent about half of it being totally confused, though, because halfway through it runs into the story of Carolin the usurped Hastur king, Romilly MacAran who disguises herself as a boy, and so on. I distinctly recall reading about that in Hawkmistress; the problem is that according to the chronology listed in this book these two books are not contemporaneous. Hawkmistress is set in the Ages of Chaos, it says, and this one is set in the Hundred Kingdoms era, which is the next era of stories. So that doesn't make sense. Do any of you guys read Darkover? If you like fantasy (especially "soft" character-driven fantasy a la McCaffrey, only a little more plotty, or Lackey but less wish-fulfillment and torturey) you totally should. You can find most of the books used for super-cheap, and there are omnibus paperback editions of the major sequences. I can tell you more about it if you want.
We then went to the mall, where I found no pants that fit. I wanted pants, and I tried on pants at three different stores. No luck. I feel fat. The plus-sized store, Torrid, had some nice pants that I at least know would be big enough, and a really really pretty top, but I didn't get a chance to try anything there on. Maybe if I still want them I'll go back.
But, yay, my present for me got here from Amazon -- the latest Chalion book ('cause LMB is one of the only authors I buy in hardcover these days), and the new Sleater-Kinney album. w00t.