Finished CHAOS AND ORDER

Stephen R. Donaldson's Gap series is a five book set which just gets more exciting and more tense with each passing book.  This is the fourth book of the series and the tension mounted until I've been on the edge of my seat for the last week and a half.  Whew!  The master of character, environment, and language, is also very much a master of science and therefore science fiction and tension.

I need a break.  I think I'll read a nice quiet relaxing book by Dan Brown...Inferno.  Oh, my faithful followers are not at all sure it will be relaxing???  Hmmmm.  This will be my sixth Dan Brown book.

Finished People of the Silence

One possible explanation for the abandonment of what we now call Chaco Canyon is presented in a very exciting a beautiful manner.  I completely enjoyed the book.

I have now started The Gap Into Madness: Chaos and Order by Stephen R. Donaldson.  Starting exactly where The Gap Into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises left off, I find myself already into it.  Not because anything earthshattering has happened already or because it started with a huge bang into action, but rather because the characters are so wonderfully quirky and interesting...this is Donaldson's strength.  His vocabulary also is seeming to become more challenging in this book, but, of course, it doesn't compare to the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant for that.

Finished I'LL WALK ALONE

Of course I did.  It is impossible to put down!  It is by Mary Higgins Clark.



I loved it especially because it was an Alvirah and Willy Meehan book.  The main character was often a wimp and Alvirah and Willy weren't as together as I wanted to give them credit for, but if these weren't the case, the book would not have been so DARN riveting!



I have now started on People of the Silence, another Gear "early Americans" book.  This is set in what is now called Chaco Canyon in about 950-1100 AD.  We are exploring the Anasazi and the increasing problems which will eventually cause them to leave.

Finished THE NEON GRAVEYARD and EARTH, a Daily Show with Jon Stewart book

Each of the six books of Vicki Pettersson's Signs of the Zodiac series, starting in the first with a really creative supernatural world, became more far out.  This series ender was really far strange--even more so than the others--and did tax my willingness to suspend belief.  But, I stuck it out and am happy with the way it ended.





I also finished Earth, A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race.  I had started reading this through like a normal book, but had to stop, finding it depressing.  I'd expected it to be funny, but found it cynical.  There were a couple chuckles in the book, but there were also some appalling things that, well, "Who would think of that?"  Like "The Diarrhea of Anne Frank."  No, not only is it too soon for that, it will always be too soon for that!   The book actually has a great premise, but breaks through the fourth wall and plays it for laughs.  If they played it seriously (like it really is a guide to the Human Race for those who come after we have gone), it could, I think actually have been funny.  But it was trying way too hard.  Anyway, about half-way through the book, I relegated it to the bathroom where I read a couple pages on good days (digestively speaking), and found it much less annoying that way.



I am now about to start I'll Walk Alone, by Mary Higgins Clark.

Finished Part 3 of LES MISERABLES

Though I believe Hugo spins a great yarn and creates great characters, he can sometimes be darned boring.  Even the best characters don't require more than say 20-30 pages to explain.  This section had 200 pages in it, 150 of which explained characters.  It wasn't until the last 50 pages did something actually start to happen.  Needless to say, these pages read very quickly in comparison.

I will now put this aside again for awhile and move on to something else.



And that is the last book in Vicki Pettersson's Zodiac series, The Neon Graveyard.  I am only 4 pages in, but, as always, she has me intrigued. 

Finished NARCISSUS IN CHAINS

Laurell K. Hamilton's series keeps becoming more erotic without losing any of its violence...in short, I love it.  It is a lovely break from my usual fare.



I've now gone back to Les Miserables to read another portion.  Am about half-way through part 3 and have only just met Marius (a sympathetic character).  No mention yet of Jean Valjean or Cosette.   

Finished A MAN RIDES THROUGH

This is among my three very favorite swords and horses fantasies--The Lord of the Rings, Tale of Fire and Ice (starts with A Game of Thrones) and now Mordant's Need (consisting of two books--The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through).  Exciting, romantic, scary, and satisfying!  Hurrah for Stephen Donaldson.  I just ordered The Last Dark (came out last Tuesday), the last of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.  If he destroys "the land" in this book, I will never forgive him!  The title sounds ominous, but the saga I have just finished gives me hope.

I have now started Narcissus in Chains, Book 10 of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series.  She spends the first chapter catching her audience up with who Anita is and what her present status is in both her personal life and the world of work.  This would be boring for people like me who have read all of the previous ones, except for the fact that it reads like a comedy routine and makes me chuckle the whole way through.  This is good, because knowing her, I won't be laughing much more as the book progresses.  In the second chapter, it becomes scary and, by the fifth, it is not only scary, but steamy.  I love the roller coaster.