jedibuttercup

Ah-hah. Ah-ha-ha-ha. WHOO! Spent a quiet few hours in the cemetery, then came home, ate dinner, and finished the rest of Skin Game. And my initial reaction can be summed up as: holy crap.

( Mostly spoiler free enthusiasm behind the cut... )

(My dad would have loved it.)

So, I bought Ghost Story at lunch on Tuesday and had a reading party with maevebran....

I'm not going to go into any great detail, but... ( cut for spoilers, anyway. )

Anyway. I'll probably reread it and dissect in more detail later just what I did and didn't like, and did or didn't see coming, and where I see it going, et cetera... but I want to post before LJ crashes again, so. What did you think?

*perplexed expression* So I'm 75 pages into the Twilight novel (which at one time I'd sworn never to read, but-- well, blame maevebran for this one) and I think I already understand some of the love/hate, is-she-a-Sue-or-what, fannish relationship going on with this text.

( It isn't the writing. It's... )
~

Tagged by empressvesica --

The last book you bought:

The Lunatic Cafe, Bloody Bones, and The Killing Dance by Laurell K. Hamilton -- books #4-6 of the Anita Blake series.

The last book you read:

Sister of the Dead by Barb and J.C. Hendee -- 3rd book in the Noble Dead series. (If you think you're sensing a theme here, you probably are. Blame it on Buffyverse withdrawal).

Five books that mean a lot to you:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Alongside Night by J. Neil Schulman
Touch Not the Cat by Mary Stewart
After the Sun Sets, a 1938 compilation of old-style fairy-tales and illustrations

These books have two things in common: (1) I was not yet a teenager when I read them for the first time; and (2) They made enough of an impression that I had to buy them for my own shelves when I left home. If you want more recent favorites, or complete details on why they made the impression they did, the list would be miles long. *grin*

Tag five other people ...

More than half my f-list seems to have done this already, and I'm not sure which of you that is. So I'll just say, if you haven't done it, I'd appreciate seeing your list.

Today's review: Slave Ship, second in The Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy.

( The first thing I noticed ... )

Next up: Book 3 of The Bounty Hunter Wars, Hard Merchandise.

I know some of you are waiting for new fic chapters from me. Sorry! I've gotten distracted; I'll have one ready for you sometime tonight or tomorrow, I promise.

No news on the job front yet. I'll keep you posted if anything happens.

So ... Return of the Jedi.

( I saw this in theaters when I was five, but I'd never read the book before. )

Next up in the timeline: The Mandalorian Armor, first of the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy.

I finished Splinter of the Mind's Eye this morning. Hnh. Well written, but some of the events made me go "Wha ...?" You can definitely tell it was written before the second and third movies came out.

( Details ... )

Heh. Anyway. I finished up the work on my website this afternoon, and then cracked open The Empire Strikes Back. It stuck closer to the film version than the novelization of A New Hope did, though there were still a few noticeable differences; Luke's training scenes on Dagobah were a little differently laid out, and the famous "I love you" / "I know" exchange was a bit longer. It went instead: "I love you. I couldn't tell you before, but it's true." / "Just remember that, because I'll be back." I think they were right to abbreviate that one on-screen; it certainly upped the dramatic quotient.

On to Shadows of the Empire next. And ... *wince* ... I really need to do my bills. I've been keeping up with payments, but I knew I had a few hundred dollars' cushion so I hadn't input my checkbook to Quickbooks in about three months. Now, though, I really need an accurate figure on what's in my account if I'm to budget properly over the next several weeks.

Oh, and I'd better call Mom to tell her I forgot to watch Survivor and CSI last night. If I'm lucky, it was one of my brother's worknights and she taped it for him to watch. *smacking forehead* Now that I'm not required to get up at a particular hour of the morning, my internal clock is rapidly resetting itself to its natural rhythm, which involves getting up around 11 AM and going to sleep at 4 AM. It's throwing my sense of timing all out of alignment.

I finished reading A New Hope tonight. Or, as it was originally titled, Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker. I was surprised by how much it actually deviated from what was shown on screen; it must have been written from an earlier version of the script. I don't have a perfect memory by any means, but I've seen the original trilogy enough times that every line of altered dialogue stuck out like a sore thumb.

( Here are some examples. )

On to The Ruins of Dantooine next. Then Splinter of the Mind's Eye, followed by the novelization of The Empire Strikes Back. I think Shadows of the Empire is after that, then Return of the Jedi, and then ... well, I'll re-check the EU timeline when I get that far.

*grin* I'd forgotten just how much I loved the Star Wars universe; "The Phantom Menace" nearly drained all the fannish-ness out of me five years ago, and "Attack of the Clones" just made it worse. The only good thing to come out of the prequels, in my opinion, was a glimpse at Obi-Wan in his prime and a better idea of what the Jedi in general could do. My affection for the younger generation seems to have fully recovered now, though. I just hope "Revenge of the Sith" doesn't destroy it all over again.