Finished Burnt Offerings by Laurell K Hamilton

First, let me say, "Aaaaaaghgh"!  I went to order The Last Dark by Stephen Donaldson (the last book in the Thomas Covenant Chronicles) only to discover that it won't be published until next fall--a YEAR from now!  If I am still alive then.  And then, I bet it will be in hardback (I usually wait for the paperback edition of everything--they are easier to read.)  So, I wound up ordering three diet soup cookbooks, though not really instead...

Burnt Offerings was the best book in the Anita Blake series yet. (I am reading them in order).  After giggling my way through the first few chapters, it was edge of my seat for the remaining 300 or so pages.  I was having trouble putting it down.

I have now started Kingsblood Royal by Sinclair Lewis, as recommended by friend Kristin.  She had mentioned that if I had enjoyed Help, I might also enjoy this.  So far (I am only about 3 pages in, but I read the introduction), I am greatly enjoying his writing style.  I don't think I've ever read anything by him before!  Don't know how he managed to escape all these years...

Finished Against All Things Ending

Wow!  I think this was the best book yet in the series.  I am worn out.  There is one book left which I need to order...today.  TR asked me if this was easier than the others.  Well, no.  I don't know how it could be and still be Thomas Covenant.  Both our hero and heroine (shero) are flawed in crippling ways, both physically and psychologically.  But both are heroic while fighting their own demons as well as real physical monsters.  The philosophy, history (of the fantasy environment), great characterization, and conflict after conflict after conflict fly by furiously.  I love this series.  I loved this book.

I am now reading Burnt Offerings by Laurell K. Hamilton, the seventh in the Anita Blake series.  I love the sense of humor in her books--I've been giggling all morning at the wonderfully black humor:  "The bellyband (holster) didn't work well under most formals because you had yards of cloth to raise before you could get to the gun.  It was better than nothing, but only if the bad guy was patient."  At least three or four comments like this per page!  Just the break from Thomas Covenant that I needed!

Against All Things Ending--212 pages in

Reading Stephen Donaldson is like reading a lesson in writing:

1.  First there are brilliant characters--both good, evil, and mixed--which he has no qualms about killing off, because he can just invent more.  Esmer--extremely powerful for both good and evil--is one of my favorites at the moment, though I love the protagonists (flawed all of them) equally as much.  And She Who Must Not Be Named is one of the most horrible monsters I've run across anywhere.

2.  He is master of environments both beautiful and terrible--a favorite at the moment is the crystal room created by the Viles in the Lost Deep.  Beautiful and terrible both, it, as do all Donaldson's environments, influences the action.

3.  Then, there is his brilliance for creating conflict.  It seems like I have been at the edge of my seat for days now, and I am only about 1/3 the way through the book.  They are not getting much opportunity to breathe, but even with problems coming as thick and fast as they do,

4. time is still taken for philosophical discussion, for good and kindness and healing to rule, and for strength born of love rather than fear to conquer.

5.  And all the time, the language and use of words is poetic, strong, and instructive.

Whew!

Finished The Return: Nightfall

This book has a very interesting pair of antagonists:  kitsune.  In The Return:  Nightfall, two twin kitsune named Misao and Shinichi play horrible games that could destroy Falls Church, Elena's town.  In a trilogy I have read by Christopher Golden--the Veil Trilogy:  The Myth Hunters, Borderkind, and The Lost.  In this trilogy, the kitsune is a protagonist.  She is flawed, but she is basically a good being, whereas in Nightfall, this fox spirit legend is very evil.  In common, they both are shape-shifters able to shift between fox and human forms.  In the Veil, that is pretty much the end of her talents.  While human, she wears a beautiful red fur coat and is lovely.  As a fox, she is very fast and tricky and can lure hunters from their prey.  In Nightfall, the kitsune can take any form they wish and can magically influence the flora in the woods as well as enchant human perception of the world.

Doing a little research through my "World of Enchantment" reference encyclopedia, I discover that the "kitsune", the fox spirit has a duel nature.  Some kitsune serve the god of agriculture--she would appear to be the Kitsune of the Veil Trilogy.  There is included in the volume I checked of a kitsune who surfaced in India--a beautiful courtesan who could shape-shift into a white fox with nine tails.  She hated children and, for entertainment, loved to see children and women suffer.  After destroying the court of the ruler of India, she fled and resurfaced in China where she again pretty much destroyed the court of the Emperor of China.  Fleeing to Japan, she attempted the same thing with their emperor until discovered by a mirror which showed her mirror image to be a fox.  This broke her magic and she fled to a remote part of Japan where she languished in loneliness until she turned to stone.  To this day, anything that approaches this stone dies.

I found no mention of a male kitsune...this would appear to be an invention of L. J. Smith.

I have now started the third book of the third and last Chronicle of Thomas Covenant:  Against All Things Ending.  Since this "Chronicle" has four volumes, I am on the ninth book of a ten-book series.  When I left "The Land" at the end of the last book, the world was in dire straights, Linden having just set in motion events which would lead to the end of the world.  So far, she has attempted to absorb the enormity of what she has done and figure out if there is anything at all she can do.  She is consulting pretty much all the historical figures of "The Land", people who have memory of history, and now has met a totally new being who appears very interesting.

Started new Vampire Diaries book

I finished Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher.  I thoroughly enjoyed the early part of the book, giggling quite a bit.  But the style became old after awhile and seemed a bit forced by the end.  I did very much enjoy all the pictures and the sense of humor evident in the headlines that graced and interior page and the book jacket.

Now I have started The Vampire Diaries, The Return: Nightfall, by L. J. Smith.  I gave up long ago on the TV show.  It just became too convoluted for me to follow with too many characters and I got bored.  But the books are great.  I'm now on page 66 and am enjoying the beginning.

Reading While Traveling

We've been traveling for the last two weeks--went to Buffalo (NY) for my brother-in-law's funeral service.  Any celebration of Lou's life would have to have been full of laughter as well as tears.  After my sister died, at the age of 46, Lou found himself another lovely lady and got gastric bypass surgery.  He lost 200+ pounds, started playing golf every day, and kept the weight off.  Later he retired and moved to Ft. Lauderdale, FL.  I hadn't realized it, but there he found several people who had been childhood friends of his growing up in the projects in NYC, and had a great retirement.  Did he die too young--yes.  69 is way too young, but I think he bought himself 15 extra and good years.  He got to see his son graduate from college, get married, have a daughter, and move to Houston with a great job.  None of that did Meg (my sister) get to see.  My family refused to let him go and he refused to leave us.  He has been included in every family get-together through this one, and will be thought of warmly in every one to come.  He was a good man, well loved.

While driving up, I finished Phantom Evil by Heather Graham.  (Well, not actually while driving--we stopped at about 6 each evening, had supper, and then read.)  In a conversation with TR and Jimmy Colburn (TR's step-son), we were discussing why I hate Stephen King (and why they love him.)  I have no idea what made Christine evil or what caused the people who died at that resort in The Shining to hang around and haunt the place.  I also don't know what there was about Jack to make him easily seduced by the madness there when the other people in the book were not.  I'll never forgive Stephen King for telling me the basement of the place was full of articles about what had happened at that resort and told me that Jack spent lots of time down there reading without telling me what was in a single one of them!  TR and Jimmy told me there are lots of things happening in life that you never get to know the background and "why" of.  I said, "I know.  And it is frustrating.  When I read, I want to know the answers.  I want to know why.  Perfectly good writers should have the ability to be less cryptic than random life."

I explained that I'd just finished reading a book set in a haunted house.  By the end of the book, I understood how all the ghosts had died, why some were good and another very evil.  I know all about the characters in the book both living and dead...all multi-faceted characters with mostly understandable motivations.  (Does evil ever have an understandable motivation?  But I knew that what drove it in life also drove it in death.)  Satisfying.  Which is why I have decided to make Heather Graham one of my regular authors.

I then started Le Morte dArtur by Sir Thomas Malory.  Because the book is so long and is, basically, a collection of short stories and novellas, I decided to divide it into three parts which I will read at different times.  Malory divided the material into seven sections.  The first four took up 200 pages, so that is what I have considered the first part.  Part One is "The Coming of Arthur and the Round Table."  Much of the foundation of the story that we are all familiar with is included in this section.  Part Two is "Arthur's War Against the Emperor Lucius."  Did you know that Arthur went to Rome to battle the Roman Emperor who was trying to extract taxes from Arthur and his people?  I sure didn't.  The third part is "Sir Lancelot du Lake."  All of the stories I had heretofore read have left Lancelot's origin something of a mystery.  Here I learned that Lancelot was the son of King Ban, a French king who was one of Arthur's earliest and most important allies.  The fourth part is "Sir Gareth of Orkney."  I had heard of Sir Gareth, but here I learned that he is as great a knight as Sir Lancelot and is proclaimed by Lancelot as his equal.  He was knighted by Lancelot.  Gareth is Arthur's nephew, youngest son of Morgaise, Arthur's half sister--daughter of Igraine.  Part Five is 300 pages long, and I will treat it as a book unto itself when I get back to this "to read" pile.  That pile also includes my Clan of the Cave Bear books.

Now I have started Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher.  It is very funny and I find myself chuckling my way through it.  I've seen her special on HBO of the same title and was afraid the book would be redundant.  Some of it is, but it is still funny.  I'm on page 48, approximately 1/3 of the way through.

Finished Unusual Suspects

The last story, A Woman's Work, by Dana Stabenow has two female justices needing to solve a crime in a province of their country which relegates women to procreation and the kitchen only.  I enjoyed this piece of feminist fiction which was also quite inventive.

I have now started Phantom Evil by Heather Graham, another mystery in which a woman seemed to have been seduced to her death by a ghost.  A team of investigators has been put together to solve the crime.  I am already very much into it.