It will be fiscally tricky, and I will have to make extra care to make sure the Chris feels loved and lucky that I am there. I am going to get him a cello for our first wedding anniversary, and lessons for the summer. I am also going to write him every few days, and direct him to a secret hidden present for him somewhere in the house...
Back to my reading list, and two thoughts on it.
Thought #1: As I have been reading along, I have been creating a problem – like alternate universes, I am generating another list of books that I must read. In fact, I’ve already bought some of them. Among them, a 100 Best Fantasy list. What to do? How to get through all of them? I want to read them all at once! So, here’s my idea. At a time: 20 off-list books, starting with ones I already own, twenty fantasy books (no particular order, starting with ones I own), 20 author-specific books
Thought #2: Realization: infodump and description are not the same thing. In my head, they were the same, but they are not. Infodump bad. Description good? We’ll have to see what the upcoming stories teach us.
Also, I skipped two books in a row that did not make the twenty-page rule. The Marked Man by Charles Ingrid and A Deeper Sea by Alexander Jablokov. Oh, well. They were second-stringers, anyway.
The Marked Man worries me. It wasn’t passing the five page rule, let alone the twenty page rule. (I purchased it at Bookman in Anaheim over Christmas because it was an “I” author and the opening seemed promising, but I see I don’t want to read it, now. The prose is painful.) It worries me because it is a DAW Book. Some of them are good, some not so good. What does that mean? If their taste is that bad, will they not take The Crows of Bedu? Conversely, if their taste is that bad, will they like The Crows of Bedu? It causes me nerves.
And I should have liked A Deeper Sea. It had dolphins, orcas, Russians, the Monterey Bay, Minoan history, references to Circe. What’s not to like? However, it was a dull, dull read. Convoluted sentences. Lots of discussion, no action. After two chapters, I was done.
As a consoling gift to myself for banging my head against two books in a row, I am now going to read A Wrinkle in Time. I think it is also an appropriate reward for that, and for getting (and going) into Clarion. Onto this lovely story.
* Just a reminder: this was originally written in 2006.