Lovecraftian Adventure Hour

Finally, something is happening--running and screaming and nightgaunts, oh my!

Words today: 1544
Total words: 56092
Reason for stopping: Sadly, I have to sleep. Stopping to plot might be wise, too.

Will Liz and Alex save the world from the wrath of the Great Old Ones, or will all of creation be reduced to so much Branston Pickle?

Stay tuned next week for more zany adventure!

Book Report

Agyar by Steven Brust, completing the vampire trifecta.

I picked this book up because I liked the cover and started reading as I walked through Hastings. By the time Steven was done looking at video games, I'd read 20 pages and would have kept going, so I decided to risk buying it. A risk because the opening is classic 1st person vampire memoirs, and I've been burned by such many a time. But, as it turns out, I was pleasantly surprised.

I really like this book, and I like it in spite of itself. The story is standard, nothing unpredictable, nothing particularly surprising. The ending could have gone two ways, and it did choose the path I least expected, but it still wasn't a real surprise.

The eponymous narrator is neither reliable nor particularly sympathetic. He's that guy you all probably know, who's witty and charming and fun at parties, but you know he's really a prick at heart and you always pity the girls who fall for him just a little. But I'm still rooting for him, even if I do want to bitch-slap him a few times.

What I really love is that, in spite of the standard vampire plot, the prose is not standard vampire prose. SVPr tends to overblown descriptions focusing on body parts, zB: She tilted her chin as she laughed, baring the graceful line of her neck. Her pulse drummed in my ears, and the copper-sweet richness of her blood filtered through pale, petal-soft skin. Or somesuch. You know what I mean. Brust eschews the paragraphs describing the scent or taste of blood, the agonies of the hunger and raptures of the kiss, but doesn't sacrifice any elegance in his writing. He also describes the use of vampire powers very neatly and succinctly, never coming off like a cheesy VLARP storyteller. I'm taking notes. (Yeah, I've got a vampire in the next book. What's a girl to do?) There were a few moments when his avoidance of vampire tropes became a little coy, and the reader was left guessing what exactly was happening, but those were rare enough to not bother me overmuch.

So, yay, another good vampire book! I'd started to fear they were a dying breed.

Another day, another k

Words today: 1039
Words total: 57151
Reason for stopping: Almost time to close up the library, and then I'm going to the movies with the boy. And I notice that my characters have started talking a lot in an attempt to avoid the upcoming fight scene, complete with Highlander-style improbable pyrotechnics.