my moral standing is lying down

I haven't been very active on LJ lately and I miss it. But I haven't had much time lately.

Finished Traitor's Moon by Lynn Flewelling. It was good enough to finish, but was mostly boring. I don't like the main character, Seregil, as much as I like Alec, and I would really have read more about Alec than there was since most of the story was about Seregil and his past. Again I feel like Flewelling starts out writing, gets carried away by her own story (which is not necessarily a bad thing), but then thinks something like, OMG, I'd better finish up the story now; I'm running out of space! And then hurriedly wraps up the plot. It can be quite annoying. The characters are interesting enough in this, the third installment in the Nightrunner Series, and I'd read additional books if they came out, but I'm still annoyed.

In spite of my annoyance with Flewelling's style, I went on to read The Bone Doll's Twin and its sequel Hidden Warrior, of the Tamir series by Lynn Flewelling. I'm quite glad that I did, in fact! TBDT was really interesting -- it was pretty slow-paced, but it was not boring at all! The slow pace fit the mood of the story really well, which had a non-traditional type ghost in it, who was pretty darn creepy an inhuman, which is RARELY the case in fantasy stories. Ghosts tend to be helpful/benevolent or evil/menacing spirits and are boringly human in their emotions. Unfortunately, Flewelling can't seem to get away from the duology bit as she doesn't quite completely wrap up the first book. I'm used to ongoing series where there's a bigger concern that doesn't get wrapped up until the end of the series, or that the situation is a changing one. But Flewelling leaves you with a cliffhanger, in all practicality. HW was good, not as enjoyable as the TBDT, but good nonetheless. Again, however, Flewelling leaves you hanging slightly at the end. TBDT was published in 2002, HW in 2004, and I thought there might never be another installment in the series (which desperately needs one to finish up the story), but I discovered today that the third book is scheduled to come out in July, so I'll have something to look forward to.

I had also randomly picked up Word Court by Barbara Wallraff. This was quite an interesting book, a bit less a grammar rule-book than a guide to practical word usage. (I bet you're saying something like, isn't a grammar rule-book technically a guide to word usage? Shut up, smart-ass.) The book consists mostly of letters written to Wallraff's column and her responses. Not as funny as say, Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss, but still interesting and amusing in its own way. She also addresses often misused words and word phrases, which is actually quite interesting as there were some word phrases that I'd wondered about, myself.

So then I ran out of stuff to read. And in case you couldn't tell, I've been on a reading binge lately -- pretty much ignoring anime in favor of reading sf/f. I'm also waiting to get another external hard drive so I can dump some stuff off my laptop before downloading more stuff, like Bleach, Nana, and some other interesting stuff that's out... including more episodes of House ( -- of which the 2nd season finale is airing tonight). Heehee.

I have several things on my to-be-read list of new books that have just come out: In Fury Born by David Weber (not an Honorverse story), Druids' Sword by Sara Douglass (book 4 in the Troy Game series, OMGIneeditNOW!), Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher (book 8 in the Harry Dresden Files). I think there may have been another book or two I was interested in, but I forgot which. I was finally able to pick up from the library One Good Knight by Mercedes Lackey and Wolfblade by Jennifer Fallon. I also bought Devlin's Luck by Patricia Bray from Barnes & Noble yesterday, which very much caught my eye, and which I'm reading now.

And did I also mention that along with Bray's book, I bought volumes one and two of Nana by Yazawa Ai, only to remember after I'd paid for them that I have the first several volumes in scanlations on the computer at home? Now I suppose I'll have to figure out whether to keep them or not... even though I have them on the computer, I do really prefer to have portable reading material for my daily commute (that doesn't depend on having my laptop with me).

I keep forgetting to mention that I finally read Steven Brust's To Reign in Hell. It was really excellently written -- I love Brust's subtle humor. I went over to his website and read that he realized at some point in the middle of writing that Satan's side would win. LOL. It didn't go in-depth into the characters' minds, but you get a really good impression of the characters. Much of the book was dialogue, so it went fairly quickly, but it was very exciting. I really enjoyed it! I put a hold on one of Brust's other stand-alone novels, also recommended by ponderosa121, Agyar, but I'm still waiting for it.

In the meantime, I bought another of Jennifer Fallon's books, Medalon, this one the first of a 6-book series (that was apparently originally released as two trilogies in Australia), "The Hythrun Chronicles". It has a lot of elements that I'm beginning to see may be part of Fallon's plot tendencies, but they aren't bad, and they aren't carbon copies of each other, so that's cool. She does seem to like the evil-plotting-woman-in-power character as a plot device, though. ^^ I'm about 75% done with the book and I think that I might just like this series more than the "Second Sons" trilogy.

D'espairsray was really cool last night. The venue was interesting, and the opening bands, particularly Suicide City, were great. The members of Suicide City are really adorable and lively... more on that later, along with D'espairsray and pics (if I can get ahold of Angelica's pics from last night).

Also, it was really great to meet eyoko, even though it was only for a few minutes after the show! =D