Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Holiday update

Happy (belated) holidays, everyone!

Had a nice Christmas morning with the family. Got a new desk which will come in extremely handy for drawing. Also, a stuffed hamster that can moonwalk. I specifically asked for no books or gift cards to bookstores because I have way too many as is and in the next few months I'm getting a bunch more sent to me. But my sister is trying to clear out her stash so she's given me:

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
The Outstretched Shadow (Book 1) by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
To Light a Candle (Book 2) by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
Cast in Shadow by Michelle Sagara
Cast in Courtlight by Michelle Sagara

So there. I'll get to them eventually. Really, I will. When? ::shrugs::

Friday, December 22, 2006

Hooray!



...and now I'm off until 2007! Hooray!

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

No, no, no, and no





Lather, rinse, repeat. For fifteen minutes.

Monday, December 18, 2006

The review queue

Queue is a funny word. Killer in Scrabble, but if you look at it too long your brain begins to fritz out. Anyways, even though I've put a lot of my reviewing tasks aside for the time being I still have books that need reviewing. At the moment, I'm just reading some books that have been on my shelf for a bit, waiting, waiting, waiting. But here's what I'll eventually get to in the first few months of 2007:
  • The Flock by James Robert Smith
  • The Awakened City by Victoria Strauss
  • Fast Forward I edited by Lou Anders
  • Farthing, Issue #5
And that's pretty much it for now. I discovered some vanity press novels that Damon had slipped me along with actual real novels (bastard!), but I doubt I'll ever even open them. It gets cold up here in North Jersey, though, so they'll be at least good for burning. Wow, I'm the nicest. I'm sure other books are coming in, and there might be the occasional pop-up review (a la Ysabel), but for the most part that should be it.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

An empty sandwich






Ever eat a sandwich consisting of just bread, shredded lettuce, and black olives? It's not bad, certainly edible, but I wanted my tuna. Shame I was too lazy to go back and complain. Least they remembered the bread. And to charge me $6 for it.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

A haiku for you

Haiku2 for wistfulwritings
my favorite shop
i've decided i need to
enlarge my tanith
@
Created by Grahame


Oh, now this is funny. Especially that last line...enlarge my Tanith, indeed.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Monday, December 04, 2006

The Burning Review

Check out my review of The Burning Land by Victoria Strauss!



From the FBS Quick Take:
The Burning Land is a novel worthy of the term epic, all without being book 1 of 12 and having a Dark Lord bent on making commoners suffer needlessly.

Raindrops keep falling on my head...






Clearly, the rain gods of Clifton exist just to smite me.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Shtuffs...






I picked up some more books at my favorite shop. I've decided I need to enlarge my Tanith Lee collection. Here's what I got:

  • Ursula K. Le Guin - The Word for World is Forest
  • Tanith Lee - The Birthgrave
  • Tanith Lee - Don't Bite the Sun
  • Tanith Lee - Drinking Sapphire Wine
  • Stephen King - Carrie
I was really hoping to find some of King's short story collections, but alas, none could be found. I did notice, however, that Cell is out in mass market paperback. Might have to pick that one up soon too.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Olives in the sky...






Sadly, I did not see this olive-eyed daughter of hers. I eventually grew annoyed with this woman talking only about her daughter and how pretty she was and how when she got older she was going to be the one girl all the boys fought over and blah, blah, blah. The guy with her was most certainly not a husband or boyfriend so I can only imagine what his opinions on this topic were.

In other news, I hit the first draft of an urban fantasy short story called "Nineteen and a Half Cats" at 3,700 words. I'm currently editing it and hopefully I can stick a fork in it soon. I haven't completed a short story in awhile and was beginning to worry I'd hit a snag of sorts. It's all right though as my backlog of tales is still pretty large.

Friday, December 01, 2006

A new month is here

...and it's raining out, but fairly warm with little to no breeze. What's up with the weather this December? I didn't mean for that question to rhyme as much as it did.