Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett
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My Rating: 
3 out of 5 stars
First Published: 1991
Read from: May 31 to June 20, 2014
Three witches take a road trip through the Discworld on a quest to complete a deceased fairy god-mother’s last wishes: The goal, to stop the wishes of a princess from coming true, and instead give her what she really needs.
Haven’t been updating my blog as I should. I have read a lot recently, and while I’ve been posting ratings on GoodReads, I apparently had not checked the “update my blog” box to have those posted here. Oops…
So I guess I’m going to manually post the book readings & their ratings here. Books rated were… Continue reading Reading Updates: 5 Book Ratings
I’ve been reading Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. I’m about 1/3 of the way through it and so far it gets about 3.5 out of 5 stars. I’ve always been fascinated by Mars and have fantasized about visiting it.
Anyway, reading the book got me interested in looking up some good images of Mars so I could “see” where some of the events of the book take place. Continue reading Living Mars
The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany
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My Rating: 
2 out of 5 stars
First Published: 1967
Read from: February 22 to March 08, 2014
“The Einstein Intersection” by Samuel R. Delany won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1967 and was nominated for the Hugo Award for 1968. I had read some things that piqued my interest in this novel so I managed to get a copy through an inter-library loan — strangely my huge local library system did not have a copy of their own.
Sadly, this book continues a trend I’ve noticed recently where many “award-winning classics” are not really all that good. It seems that genre novels that do something for the first time — whether it is for artistic effect, to state their often biased opinion on current political or sociological trends, or to capitalize on some popular fad of the time — books that do stuff like that so often become award winners… whether or not there is actually a decent or engaging story wrapped around all that “stuff”. Read My Full Review →
Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb
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My Rating: 
5 out of 5 stars
First Published: August 1995
Read from: February 04 to 19, 2014
The novel Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb was much different than the title led me to believe, as I probably never would have given it a try if I had judged this book by it’s title. However it’s very high ratings and the frequency with which fantasy discussions brought it up moved it to the top of my “to read” list. For a story about an Assassin’s Apprentice there is actually very little killing going on. Thinking this would focus on assassinations I had thought I would be turned off. Ironically, one of the few problems I had with this book was actually the LACK of action in places. But it is safe to say that the main character, and most of the characters as a whole, do not fall victim of the traditional stereotypes of the genre tropes. Over all I had mixed feelings about this book while reading it. Read My Full Review →
Eric by Terry Pratchett
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My Rating: 
4 out of 5 stars
First Published: January 1990
Read from: February 04 to 19, 2014
The British TV series Monty Python’s Flying Circus had a famous sketch about a dead parrot that is very funny. This story, like much of Pratchett’s Discworld novels, reminds me a little of Monty Python. And Eric even has a parrot in it. While not dead, the parrot, and the book as a whole, is very funny.
Eric is a want-to-be demon-summoning “hacker”. In an attempt to summon a demon, he summons instead Rincewind the wizard who was trapped in the Dungeon Dimensions in a previous Discworld novel. The two of them, Eric’s parrot and Rincewind’s sentient Luggage commence to bumble into one adventure after another.
Elminster in Myth Drannor by Ed Greenwood
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My Rating: 3 of 5 stars
First Published: January 1997
Read from: January 30 to February 01, 2014
Much better than I thought it would be. Had a few minor issues with it that I won’t bother to go into, mainly because what this book did well, it did very well indeed… Namely keep me entertained and wanting to find out what would happen next.
I had the movie Spaceballs on as background noise while doing some housework today. Caught a reference I missed the first 300 or so times I’ve seen it.
“Prepare for metamorphosis! Are you ready Kafka?” – Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet, Spaceballs (1987)
By sheer luck, today has been Sherlock Holmes day for me…
First: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes was born on this day in 1854.
Second: I watched the first two episodes of season three of the BBC series Sherlock.
While the new Sherlock episodes were fun and quite good, considering that there are only a total of three episodes in the entire season and I just watched two-thirds of them, where are the MYSTERIES? The mysteries should be the CENTER of any Sherlock Holmes tale. The ones that have appeared so far seem to be like appetizers to a meal that is never provided. I have an idea where they may go with the last episode, but really… So much wasted potential.
003:365:2014 Red Tail Hawk Collage
Gorgeous day out today. I still had not taken my 365 photo of the day when I went for a run after work at the local green belt. Don’t normally do this, but I decided to wear a backpack with my SLR in it — just in case.
I had almost completed my entire exercise without being inspired, (tired, but not inspired,) when far across a field I saw a big hawk in a tree. I got my camera out and made my way through the field trying to get some good shots. What followed was a hop scotch from tree to tree, with the hawk hunting some in between each. I took a bunch of shots, but picked only some near the end of my “hunt” which was the closest I got (which was still pretty far off). When I first saw him I was pretty sure he was a red tail which these photos have pretty much confirmed.
Finally I had considered taking a photo of my bird book & binoculars at some point if I couldn’t come up with an idea some day this year. Guess I just blew that by deciding to include it in this collage.
